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p 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH, 


WITH OTHEE STORIES. 


BY VIRGINIA F. TOWNSEND. 


3 r 


CINCINNATI: 
HITCHCOCK AND WALDEN. 

NEW YORK: 

NELSON AND PHILLIPS. 




(/l^ e 


Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863 

13 Y POE & HITCHCOCK. 

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of Ohio. 


PREFACE. 


I iiave been gleaning once more in that field 
where, amid the Spring rains and the Summer sun- 
shine, my thoughts have ripened for the harvest, 
and, behold! I come bringing my sheaves with me. 

Certainly my little book has no lofty claims nor 
pretensions; but I fondly hope that it may be a 
guest cherished and beloved by some firesides — that 
it may knock at the doors of some hearts, bringing 
to them gifts of strength and comfort, of healing 
and good cheer. 


V. F. T. 
























• 















• 
































































■ 












> 




























» 








TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


CHAPTER I. 

“And so, Guy, you are straight from the acade- 
my? Things look as they did eight years ago?” 
and the speaker pushed across the table, as he 
asked this question, a cut-glass dish of some antique 
pattern, brimming over with great purple bubbles 
of grapes. 

The guest helped himself to one of the clusters, 
and, as he held it up in the light, it glowed like a 
heap of carbuncles. 

“Just precisely as they used to look. I declare, 
I wandered out under the old oaks, where you and 
I have idled so many hours, and it made me feel 
like an old man almost, to remember what a wide 
gap eight years made betwixt those old school-boy 
days and the present ones.” 

“Dear old school days!” said Leonard Talcott, 
with a thoughtfulness which almost amounted to sad- 
ness in his voice. “How ’s the Doctor flourishing?” 

7 


8 


TEMPTATION AND TKIUMPH. 


“ He ’s tHe same straightforward, keen, warm 
old soul that he was when we were a couple of 
jolly rogues under his thumb.” 

“I tell you, Guy,” said Leonard Talcott, and he 
brought down, with very unusual fervor, his hand 
on the table, “if my faith in all the rest of man- 
kind were to die utterly out, the thought of that 
one man, Dr. Eeynolds, with his stern integrity, 
his great, honest, steadfast face, would keep a little 
corner of light and faith in me somewhere. There 
is a man, I could say to myself, whom no price 
could purchase, no temptations corrupt — a man 
who would go unflinching to the stake or the 
gallows for what he believed to be right — a man 
true to his principles to the very core.” 

Just then the face of Leonard Talcott was some- 
thing to study. It was a fine, intelligent one, with 
a certain expression of good-natured indifference, 
which his whole bearing sustained. But just now 
his look had flashed out of indifference and indo- 
lence into manliness and exaltation. The better 
part of the young man's nature was for the mo- 
ment uppermost, and in his face, as he turned it on 
his guest, and Guy Kenyon, his old school-fellow 
and college class-mate and most intimate friend for 
the last ten years, saw this and felt it. 

For a moment the latter was silent, gazing on 
his host. Then he said, more to himself than to 
the other, “That reminds me of a talk the Doctor 
had with me about you.” 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


9 


“What did he say? — out with it, old fellow!" 
Dr. Reynolds was one of the very few men whose 
opinion of himself Leonard Talcott really did care 
about; I mean aside from that personal vanity and 
approbativeness, of which the young man had his 
full share, and which made him relish the admira- 
tion of all his cronies. 

“Won’t you wince? — some of it will cut close?" 
questioned Guy Kenyon, a little doubtfully. 

“I won’t flinch. The Doctor’s nice mental anat- 
omy may hurt, but one never gets angry over it,’ 
because he never inflicts a pain that he wouldn’t 
spare if he could." 

“Well, after the recitations were over for the 
day, he invited me to take a 1 constitutional’ with 
him, and we went down through the lane and ovei 
the old turnpike, and took the road that strikes 
west to the mountains — the very road that we used 
to go in the Fall to hunt squirrels and birdsnests, 
and climb the chestnut-trees." 

“Go on," said Leonard Talcott; and beyond the 
words the tone said that the whole scene rose and 
stood vivid before him. 

“Well, in the midst of some conversation that 
went right dow T n into the core of whatever it 
touched on, and showed it bare for its true worth, 
as the Doctor’s conversation always shows every 
thing, the old man stopped short, bent his tall form 
forward, and looked at me through his spectacles in 
just the way that he used to transfix us when we 


10 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


were summoned before him after some scrape in 
which you and I had such a faculty for getting our 
necks. 

“‘What is your old chum, Talcott, doing now?' 
he asked. 

“‘0/ I said, ‘he’s taking the world easy after* 
his fashion, having a good time generally, dipping 
into law a little ! A man is n’t apt to work very 
hard when he ’s got a fortune like Talcott’s to save 
him from the necessity of all exertion.’” 

“Much obliged to you for holding me up to the 
Doctor’s vision as such a lazy dog!” interposed the 
young host, with a frown. 

But Guy Kenyon knew his man, and knew, too, that 
at the root and core of his nature Leonard Talcott 
loved and reverenced honesty and sincerity; so the 
assumed displeasure had no effect. He laughed out, 
“Well, old fellow, I ’ve said harder things than that, 
by a long shot, to your face, and you’ve stood it; 
so you do n’t frighten me now. And the old man 
ground his great cane with its gold top into the 
soil, and took off his hat and wiped his grand old 
forehead, and said, with a force and impressiveness 
that was fairly awful, because you knew he felt it, 

‘ That fortune will be that young man’s curse and 
ruin, for time and eternity, I fear. When I think 
of him with his fine instincts and generous nature, 
with all the splendid possibilities of his life, with 
all his latent force and power to influence others ; 
when T think of the mark he might leave on his 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


11 


day and generation for good, and truth, too, and 
think how that miserable gold of his stands in the 
way of it all, I feel like crying to God to sweep it 
all away with one powerful blow. 

“‘Then, the man in him that is being frittered 
away in mere aesthetic directions, in self-indulgence 
and indolence, would be roused up to earnest work and 
endeavors. He needs — what every young man needs 
to develop his moral muscle — hand-to-hand bat- 
tling with the world; he needs some strong, noble, 
controlling purpose to take possession of him, body 
and soul, to stir him up from his luxurious sloth, 
and to fight for to the death, as every man must 
fight or be vanquished in this life. But what hope 
is there for him with that love of pleasure eating 
into his purposes, enervating his moral forces, pan- 
dering to his lower physical life, till this subju- 
gates the higher one? Let him stand alone, with 
not a dollar in the world, and only his own brave 
head and his own strong arm, and I should have 
little fear for Leonard Talcott's coming out right. 
He 's got the elements of a man in him ; but,’ and 
the Doctor stood out there just by the willow where 
the turnpike road intersects the one from the mount- 
ains, and shook his fine old gray head as he said, 
sadly, ‘he has been rich from his birth, and that 
shall be his misfortune and his curse.' ” 

Leonard Talcott had been leaning half-way across 
the great table as he drank in every word that his 
guest spoke. You would only have known that he was 


12 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

greatly moved by bis fixed attention and a little 
paleness which came over his face. 

But as his friend ceased he put his hand suddenly 
over his eyes, and did not speak a word. His friend 
sat still, looking at him with a great deal of solici- 
tude, almost regretting that he had been so frank 
with him. 

But after a while Leonard Talcott drew his hand 
from his eyes, and they shone with tears now that 
were rung out of his better self — tears that he was 
not ashamed his class-mate should, see. 

,“Gu y,” he said, so solemnly that most of his in- 
timate friends would hardly have recognized the 
indifferent, careless, graceful Leonard Talcott, “what 
the Doctor said was true — I mean that part of it 
which condemns me. I know I ’m frittering away 
my time, my opportunities— all that goes to make 
a strong, vigorous, useful manhood. It *s my curse 
that I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth.” 

“But, man alive, stir yourself up then, and live 
down and work off the curse with all your moral 
and mental force.” 

Leonard Talcott leaned over and grasped his 
friend s hand fervently. 

“Guy,” he said, “do you know that the real root 
and core of my liking for you above all the other 
fellows in school or college lies in your honest, 
straightforward, outspoken sincerity? You never 
flattered me, old fellow, and never praised me 
without I deserved it. You told me the truth many 


TEMPTATION AND TKIUMPH. 


13 


a time at the risk of offending me ; and you ’d 
have sacrificed your own self-interest to my best 
good any day ; and I honor and love you . for all 
this, Guy Kenyon.” 

The class-mate of Leonard Talcott was visibly 
moved. 

The two young men, as they sat together in the 
lofty library, with its massive bookcases on one 
side, and its rosewood cabinets, filled with all rare 
and curious treasures, on the other, the sight of 
which would have made a natural philosopher or an 
antiquarian glow with enthusiasm — the two were, 
as I said, sitting there in the broad lake of light 
from the chandelier overhead, in fine contrast to 
each other. Leonard Talcott, with whom this story 
has most to do, had a slender, medium-sized figure, 
with a head finely shaped, about which clustered 
the thick hair whose deep chestnut would have 
been beautiful in a woman. His face was not wo- 
manish though, and the broad, strongly- cut features 
were not handsome. Dark eyes of a hue that suited 
the hair, and that had plenty of fire in them, and 
a good many other things which it took time and inti- 
macy to discover, and a mouth that usually enforced 
the expression of the eyes, whatever that might be; 
such, in brief, is Leonard Talcott in his twenty-fifth 
year, as he sits in his library to-night. 

His class-mate is a little taller than he, of lighter 
complexion, with brown, slightly-curling hair, and 
deep, penetrating eyes. His features are brown, 


14 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


open, honest. There is an expression of sincerity 
about the young man’s face that you would be likely 
to trust in any emergency which renders it neces- 
sary for one to depend solely upon one’s intuitions 
of character. There is more thoughtfulness, more 
sobriety usually in his face than in his companion’s; 
and he has a slight coldness of manner which repels 
those who do not understand Guy Kenyon. 

“Leonard,” says the guest, after a little pause, 
“I felt while the Doctor talked to me as though 
I’d a good deal to answer for in our school and 
college lives together. If I had any influence over 
you, I did n’t use it to the best advantage. I was 
too careless and harum-scarum to take your inter- 
ests and the possibilities of your future much to 
heart. Those six years I might have done for you 
something that I shall never have the chance of 
doing now; but the remembrance of all that makes 
me doubly earnest in what I have to say now. 
Leonard, do n’t let the best years of your life go to 
seed. You have talents, influence, all the things 
that make a man a force among his fellow-men. 
Get out of this indolent, diffusive, exhaustive life; 
concentrate yourself, do something for your day and 
generation.” 

And Leonard Talcott answered, sadly, “I feel 
what you say to the quick, old friend and true. 
But, somehow, I have n’t much faith in myself. 
The old habits and the old life are strong, and I 
have n’t any strong purposes in life to wake me up 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 15 

into work and self-sacrifice; and I Ve made so many- 
spasmodic efforts in the right direction and come 
down so flat at last, that I Ve lost faith in myself. 
A fellow at twenty-five finds a great many forces 
against him, both active and quiescent, when he 
attempts to change the whole drift and tenor of his 
life. There are his own habits, which get pretty 
well settled by that time; and there, too, is his own 
inertia to overcome, physical, mental, moral. There 
is a small chance for me, Guy.” 

And Guy smiled on his friend a smile in which so 
much thoughtfulness and sadness mingled, that it 
was no provocative of mirth. “ Leonard, what a 
misfortune it is that you were born into a for- 
tune!” 

“ Exactly, dear old mentor ! If I were a poor dog 
now, and had to fight for my bread before I could 
eat it, I honestly believe that I Ve got fiber enough 
in me to do good, stout battle with circumstances; 
but my bread 's baked and buttered,” and there 
was a twinkle in the gray eyes of Leonard Tal- 
cott. 

“More's the pity.” Just then the distant whis- 
tle of the locomotive, caught up and prolonged into a 
shrill cry by the echoes among the hills, broke in 
upon the friends. 

“The down train follows that in half an hour, 
and I’ve to reach the depot in that time;” and 
Guy Kenyon rose up. 

“Stay over till to-morrow night,” pleaded, not 


16 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

for the first time, the host. “We’ll have some 
capital boating on the river to-morrow.” 

“ Thank you, Leonard ; I ’m doomed to stand 
among the workers, and must be in New York to- 
morrow noon. Do n’t forget what Dr. Beynolds said.” 

“ I sha’ n’t be very likely to if I try. His words 
will rise up and witness against me for good or for 
evil.” 

The young men walked to the front door during 
the latter part of this conversation; and here they 
shook hands and parted, with an apology on the 
host’s side that he could not accompany his guest 
to the depot, because of his desire to be at home to 
receive his aunt, who had been in the city for a 
week on a visit to an old friend of hers. 

Leonard Talcott never failed in any loving court- 
esy to the aunt who was to him more than, alas! 
many mothers are to their sons. 

It was a beautiful evening in the early Autumn. 
The large, solemn stars stood up steadfast, eternal 
witnesses in the sky, and amidst them hung a full- 
blossomed moon. The light fell in clear, silver 
tides on the beautiful grounds and on the old-fash- 
ioned, picturesque stone mansion, which was part 
of the heritage of Leonard Talcott. 

The young owner of the estate walked up and 
down the veranda with his. usual rapid, careless, 
graceful gait, and then thrust his hands into his 
pockets and leaned against one of the pillars where 
the honeysuckles made a scarlet heat. 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 17 

The broad avenue rolled away from the stone 
steps, till the path which wound through it looked 
in the distance like a silver thread on a dark-green 
plush; the rare and beautiful shrubbery which filled 
the grounds stood still, enchanted with the moon- 
light, and the night wind was not louder than the 
breath of a sleeper among them. 

Leonard Talcott looked on all this, and the best 
part of the man’s soul awoke within him, as it al- 
ways did when Nature called to him out of her inner 
tabernacle. 

The power and the tenderness, the nobility and 
the manliness that made true hearts, whether of 
men or women, turn to him, was in the ascendant 
for the time. But it was the misfortune of Leonard 
Talcott’s life that he was a favorite with every body; 
impressible, susceptible, with a great deal of appro- 
bativeness, with social brilliancy and accomplish- 
ments which made him admired, praised, sought for 
on every hand; and with a fortune at his disposal 
which indulged him in every luxury that his fancies 
or his taste suggested, it needed no ordinary moral 
force and discipline to resist the allurements with 
which the world crowded itself on Leonard Talcott. 
He had not resisted them. But his own words and 
his own condemnation, wrung out of his higher con- 
victions and intuitions, shall condemn him. 

“It ’s a miserable humbug, after all!” he said to 
himself, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and 

walking up and down the veranda; and his fine 
2 


18 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


face was thoughtful and troubled now — “a misera- 
ble humbug this life of mere enjoyment and aesthetic 
indulgence that I ’m living ! Time, money, talents, 
all wasted in this way, when I ought to be bearing 
my part of the burden in the age and the world 
that I ’m living in. Do n’t I know, better than any 
man, even Dr. Reynolds, can tell me, that I ’m liv- 
ing for no purpose in the world? Riding, boating, 
racing, sight-seeing, and a little studying in the 
Summer; and in the Winter it is worse than that — 
with parties and picture galleries, with clubs, and 
oyster suppers, and operas, and plays ! Truly, it ’s 
a noble life . you ’re leading, 0 Leonard Talcott ! 
You 've got a reputation among men for a good 
fellow, among women for an agreeable talker and a 
splendid gentleman ! That ’s fine capital to carry 
into another world, is n’t it ? For you are neither 
atheist, infidel, nor sneerer, and believe that this 
life holds close and eternal relations to another; 
and, because of this, may be your condemnation 
shall be the greater. Why do n’t you rouse up 
now, and get to doing some good battle with the 
world, the flesh, and the devil? For you know 
that disgust, inanity, and despair will, as certain as 
destiny, overtake you sooner or later, on the road 
you ’re in now.” 

These were the highest moral instincts of Leonard 
Talcott speaking now. He did not always talk like 
this, or see with so clear a vision. Physical and 
mental inertia, luxury, love of ease, and a keen 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


19 


relish of outward enjoyment, all combined to drag 
him down and obscure his perceptions. 

“I wonder,” continued hi3 soliloquy, “if I ’d bet- 
ter face about and buckle down to law, or go abroad ; 
that last looks a little like shirking my work; and 
then my ill luck would follow me there — the ill 
luck of being born with a silver spoon in my mouth;” 
and Leonard Talcott laughed to himself a laugh 
made up of amusement and bitterness. 

At that moment a domestic came hurriedly out 
of the front door, and addressed his young master. 
“Your aunt has just returned, sir,” he said. 

Half an hour later Leonard Talcott sat in the 
little alcove just beyond the library, on an ottoman, 
at the feet of a lady a little past the prime of her 
years, with a pale, sweet face, about which were 
parted the silken bands of soft, brown hair, faintly 
sifted with gray. I am certain that you would 
have liked this lady’s face, with its gentleness, its 
tenderness, its intelligence; and her voice was in 
harmony with her face. 

“Aunt Ellen, it seems good to get you back again, 
and to be here in my old place.” 

Mrs. Lathrop’s hand lay soft among the brown 
curls. “My boy,” said she, “have you got on com- 
fortably without me ? I have n’t been absent from 
you in thought a half hour.” 

“ I ’ll warrant it, when I expressly stipulated you 
should n’t think of me from the hour you left the 
door till you set foot inside of it again.” 


20 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


“You always asked impossibilities from a boy, 
Leonard,” with her soft eyes full of pride and ten- 
derness. “ Come, now, own you 've missed me a 
little, for politeness’ sake, if nothing more.” 

“A great deal, aunt Ellen;” and he lifted up his 
lips and kissed the lady’s cheek as a loving, rever- 
ent son might kiss his mother’s. “There’s been 
a terrible vacuum and sense of loss in the house, 
so much so that I ’ve abjured it for the last week, 
except as a lodging-place, and kept outdoors, riding, 
boating, and hunting; and, for the last two days, Guy 
Kenyon, your favorite, has been with me.” 

“I'm sorry that I missed him,” said Mrs. Lathrop, 
a little regretfully. “What did he say to you?” 

“0, things that made me feel grave — things that 
you would n’t have heard without a strong protest !” 
getting up and going to a small, table on which was a 
basket of oranges. He took one of them, made a 
small incision with his fruit-knife, and returned to 
the table. “Aunt Ellen, Guy ’s put a new idea into 
my head.” 

“What is it, my boy?” 

Leonard Talcott did not answer at once. He con- 
tinued to tear away the golden rind from the fruit, 
and then looked up suddenly. “What would you 
say if I were to go off to Europe for a year?” 

“0, Leonard!” slipping her arm around his neck, 
and he felt the shudder that went over her. 

“ Come now, aunty, do n’t take it so. You shall 
go along with me.” 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


21 


“But, Leonard, I have sense enough to per- 
ceive I should only be in the way many times, 
and probably, on 'the whole, of little service to 
you.” 

“You would be, aunt Elldn, more than you 
suspect, keeping me out of many a break-neck ad- 
venture, into which I should be likely to run my 
precious neck without you. You never did me but 
one harm in the world, aunt Ellen.” 

“What was that, Leonard?” asked Mrs. Lathrop, 
not very solicitously. 

“You didn’t hold the reins quite tight enough 
when I was a youngster. You let me have my own 
way a little too strongly; now, when the time has 
come for me to manage myself, I find it ’s tough 
work — very tough work, aunty.” 

Mrs. Lathrop looked sober now. “Perhaps I was 
not wise always in my over-fondness,” she said, 
speaking quite as much to herself as to her nephew. 
“But you were all I had in the world, Leonard; 
for my husband and boys were covered away from 
my sight; and your father was my only brother, 
and I had not been two years under his roof when 
he gave you to me, Leonard; and, as I said, per- 
haps I was not always wise in my over- tenderness.” 
Mrs. Lathrop spoke the last words in a self-reproach- 
ful voice that touched her nephew. 

“Aunt Ellen,” he said, springing to his feet, 
“don’t you go to saddling on yourself any of my 
sins and mistakes. I solemnly assert here, that if 


22 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

there is any thing good, or just, or true in me — 
any thing that good men shall find to praise where 
there is so much to blame, and if my future shall 
have any thing honorable or worthy of praise, I owe 
it to you, and to the example which your life has 
set before me of all things that are pure, and beau- 
tiful, and of good report.” 

The lady looked up at him through her tears, 
which were only of joy, and her nephew stood before 
her in all the pride and strength of his young man- 
hood, and her heart went out to him in a love that 
was well-nigh idolatry. And just then tea was 
announced, and Leonard gave his arm to his aunt, 
and they went out together to the small table which 
had been spread for them alone. 

It seemed good to both of them to sit here once 
more, and Leonard’s smile said this as he received 
his cup of coffee from his aunt. 

Then their talk went to lighter subjects of family 
matters and pleasant gossip of relatives and friends; 
and at the close of the meal Mrs. Lathrop said to 
her nephew, “ Cousin Esther and I had a little dis- 
pute about the time of your great-uncle Jerome 
Talcott’s visit to Europe. There ’s a bundle of let- 
ters in some of the drawers in the old secretary in 
the south chamber with his name and Brussels on 
the outside; and as you have the keys, won’t you 
look them up for me?” 

“Yes, to-morrow.” 

Ah, on what small hinges turn the mighty events 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 23 

of our lives! Mrs. Lathrop little guessed what her 
question involved, or to what it would lead. 

And Leonard said, with a laugh, “ I must indulge 
in a third cup of coffee this evening, in honor of 
your return, aunty.” 

And as she passed the gilded cup to him, Mrs. 
Lathrop said, with a smile, “Well, Leonard, have 
you made up your mind about going to Europe?” 

“I shall stay at home this year I think, and 
next Winter, when I go to the city, I mean to 
make a desperate effort, and buckle down hard to 
the law.” 

And so, as it ever has been, man makes his plans 
and God disposes of them. 


CHAPTER II. 

Company, visiting, social excitement of one kind 
and another, occupied the month following Mrs. 
Lathrop’s return, and her nephew accordingly found 
no opportunity of fulfilling his promise of investi- 
gating the old secretary, till a morning blanketed 
in low, leaden clouds, with a drizzling, despondent 
sort of a rain, reminded him of the matter, and 
sent him up stairs to forage among the old drawers 
for the bundle of letters which his aunt desired to 
consult. 

The secretary was a heavy, old-fashioned piece of 


24 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


mahogany, that had been imported to this country 
from England by a great-great-uncle of Leonard 
Talcott’s, more than a century ago, when furniture 
was made more for use than show. 

It stood, dark and grim, in one corner of a cham- 
ber which was only used when the great house had 
a plethora of guests ; and the key which stood in the 
lock had probably not been turned for a half score 
of years. Inside, the old secretary was a curiosity. 
It seemed to have been especially designed and con- 
structed for baffling discovery, and would have 
served admirably for containing the papers of some 
embassador of Philip the Second. Each large 
drawer was full of various small ones, of little curi- 
ous corners and compartments, and small doors 
opening into dark recesses, where all sorts of edicts, 
of secret instructions and ordinances might be 
securely bestowed, till the hour arrived for them 
to see the light. 

The young owner examined this ancient piece of 
furniture, whose interior he now beheld for almost 
the first time in his life, and thus apostrophized it: 
“Beally, you belong quite to another age and state 
of existence, with your infinite drawers and doors, 
and all sorts of machinery for hiding secret docu- 
ments and St. Bartholomew decrees. You have a 
mysterious, threatening, aggressive sort of physiog- 
nomy, which does n’t belong to our broad-daylight 
nineteenth century. In short, you ’re a suggestion 
of secret dungeons, and conspiracies, and all sorts 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


25 


of political intrigues, and are woefully out of place 
in this Young- America age.” 

And so Leonard Talcott went on turning the keys 
in the small rusted locks, and opening the little 
doors, whose apartments disclosed other sets of small 
drawers, and these were mostly filled with bundles 
of letters, and deeds, and bills of sale, tied with 
faded red tape and ribbon. 

The great-uncle of Leonard, from whom he in- 
herited his fortune, including the secretary, was an 
eccentric and rarely-methodical man, and it was 
doubtful whether, in the course of his life, he had 
ever destroyed a scrap of writing addressed to him- 
self; and the secretary had formed, and continued 
to be, the sole depository of all his epistolary and 
business papers. 

This great-uncle had, by a variety of shrewd and 
far-seeing speculations, expanded the moderate for- 
tune which his father left him into great wealth. 

He was, as I said, a man of many marked eccen- 
tricities, and some fine qualities of character. His 
opinions were all stout convictions, which he main- 
tained with intense obstinacy; he was a shrewd, 
keen business man, generous and kind-hearted, but 
of an irascible temper, and much given to odd, out- 
of-the-way speeches and doings, being possessed of 
an aggressive moral independence, which feared 
nothing, and rendered no homage to established 
precedents, opinions, or customs of any kind. 

This man, Jerome Talcott. was a childless wid- 


26 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


ower. He had two nephews, the sons of his elder 
and younger brothers. The latter was the grand- 
father of Leonard; and Jerome Talcott had, in his 
will, made Lewis, the father of Leonard and son of 
his younger brother, the heir of his entire property, 
which amounted to nearly half a million. A little 
time previous to the old gentleman’s death there 
had been a sharp collision betwixt the old man and 
the young one on account of a diversity of political 
opinions ; and Lewis Talcott had still further offended 
this obstinate and irascible uncle, to whom he had 
always occupied the relation of a son, by a journey 
to Europe, soon after his marriage, which he made 
without obtaining his relative’s consent. Jerome 
had threatened to disinherit Lewis, and give his 
property to the son of his elder brother, although 
there had been, for many years, a coolness betwixt 
the families. It was thought that the rich old man 
might have executed his threat, as he sent for his 
elder nephew, and received a visit from him; but 
the sudden death of the former put an end to all 
the counsels which he took of his indignation. 

Lewis Talcott was summoned home from Europe, 
where he was traveling with his young wife, whose 
delicate health caused him much solicitude, and on 
his return to his native land found that his uncle’s 
will left him in undisputed possession of the prop- 
erty. 

Lewis Talcott had behaved very generously to 
his elder cousin, who, at least, had every reason to 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 27 

expect that his uncle’s last will and testament would 
leave him a large legacy. 

Then the young husband settled himself down 
on his newly-acquired estate, built a large old 
English mansion on its fairest site, and the world 
pronounced judgment that Lewis Talcott was blessed 
and favored above other men. 

Alas, for the false judgments of the world! In 
less than three years after he had reared his goodly 
home its fair young mistress was laid away under 
the soiled flannels of Autumn grass, leaving her 
stricken husband one comfort in his desolation, a 
little sweet-faced, golden-haired boy, too young yet 
to comprehend his loss. 

Lewis Talcott lived three years afterward, the 
truest and sincerest of mourners; then a sudden 
fever clutched the strong man, and in a few days 
he knew that his days were numbered. 

Mrs. Lathrop, his only sister Mary, was a widow 
and childless. The two had loved each other with 
a devotion which rarely exists between brother and 
sister, and in the very last hour of his life the dying 
father committed his only son, in words she would 
not be likely to forget, to his sister’s care. 

How faithfully she had fulfilled the trust reposed 
in her, with what tenderness and self-devotion, 
Leonard Talcott would bear witness. 

The young man did not find the letter of which 
he was in quest for some time, and his curiosity 
was somewhat stimulated in his search, so that he 


28 


TEMPTATION AND TKIUMPH. 


kept on peering into the various corners of the 
ancient secretary long after he had accomplished 
the object of his visit. And as he kept on thoughts 
of its former owner suggested themselves to him, 
and the strange stories he had heard from childhood 
of his strange fancies and eccentricities floated back 
to his memory. 

“It is just like him,” he murmured to himself — 
“as full of all out-of-the-way corners, and unex- 
pected turns, and little surprises in the shape of 
drawers and doors, as the old man was of whims, 
and notions, and oddities in general!” 

Leonard Talcott had not often paused to read the 
contents of the faded and yellow papers which dis- 
closed themselves in his search; but at last, just 
as he concluded he had exhausted the old secre- 
tary, he touched a spring in the back part of 
the drawer, and a very small compartment disclosed 
itself, whose existence one would not be likely to 
suspect. Some document was carefully folded and laid 
away here, which the young man drew into the light, 
and, presuming that some special importance might 
attach to it from the evident care with which it had 
been concealed, he half-thoughtlessly, half-curiously, 
unfolded it, meanwdiile whistling some light tune. 

But the tune suddenly ceased, and a startled, 
intense look spread itself all over his face. The 
young man greedily devoured the old instrument, 
written more than thirty years ago — greedily de- 
voured it over and over again, every letter and 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


29 


sentence seeming to scorch themselves in fire on his 
heart and brain. 

At last he looked up with a white, bewildered face. 
“What does it mean? Am I awake or dreaming?” 
spoke Leonard Talcott to himself. He stared all 
about him. Outside, the low, gray woolens of cloud 
lay thicker than ever, and the despondent rain of 
the early day had gained heart and strength, and was 
beating in a gray sheet against the windows. 

The old secretary stood before him, grim, and dark, 
and tall, and it seemed now to the young man as 
he gazed on it that it suddenly became inspired 
with a spirit — a spirit that looked down on him, 
powerful, threatening, defiant — and then Leonard 
looked on the paper he held in his hand; held and 
crushed it, and made a quick, fierce movement to 
tear it in pieces; and the next moment he smoothed 
out all the folds carefully and tenderly; then he 
turned and walked up and down the room, and his 
step, his quick, lithe, ringing step, was uncertain 
and agitated as an old man’s, and his face was white, 
and the look there was one that they who loved 
Leonard Talcott best would have grown pale to 
see. 

He had entered that lonely chamber that morn- 
ing the undisputed owner of lands which reached 
around him as far as his gaze could travel; he 
would go out What? 

The document which Leonard Talcott held could 
only make answer, for it was the will, duly signed 


30 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


and sealed, of his dead uncle, Jerome Talcott, and 
that will gave every dollar of his money, every 
foot of his estate, to John, the son of his elder 
brother, William Talcott! 

There was no disputing it. That old will had at 
last risen up from its grave of years in the old secre- 
tary to confront Leonard Talcott face to face, and 
to tell him that the lands and gold which he and 
his father had held so long were justly and rightly 
another’s; that he had no claim to one acre of the 
land about him; that the very roof over his head 
was another man’s. And then, walking up and 
down the chamber, with his white face and unsteady 
steps, Leonard Talcott asked his soul what he should 
do, what justice and right demanded of him in this 
matter. 

He had always called himself an honorable gen- 
tleman. His instincts of justice and right were, as 
we have seen, strong and true; he would have 
repudiated with high-souled indignation the barest 
suggestion that he, Leonard Talcott, would not 
sooner cut off his right hand than do any thing 
mean or dishonorable; and yet here and now the 
temptation came upon him with awful power and 
wrestled with his soul. 

He saw the whole thing at a glance; saw that if 
he went out into the world, and proclaimed the 
discovery he had made that morning, that it would 
be wresting from him his entire fortune, and that 
he would find himself a penniless man, thrown upon 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


31 


his own resources for his bread and his shelter. 
No wonder that the luxurious, fastidious, pampered 
youth shrank from the thought. 

And then, taking counsel of the temptation which 
had come to his soul on that day and hour, he said 
to himself that no human being knew of the exist- 
ence of that will, none ever need; all he had to do 
was to strike a match — and he glanced at the little 
marble box which stood on the mantle — touch the 
small curl of flame to the yellow paper, and in a 
moment it would be a little black pile, which the 
first breath of wind might blow away, and then his 
fortune would stand on its old foundation, and no 
earthly power could wrest it from him. And the 
Temptation whispered its specious sophistries to him 
that this money was his and his father's before him 
by absolute right; that Jerome Talcott, in a fit of 
unjustifiable anger, had no right to revoke the 
decision of his whole life, and that his first will 
ought to stand. “And it shall , I say it shall ” said 
the young man grinding the heel of his boot into the 
floor, and setting his teeth together; and he swung 
the will over his head, and laughed such a laugh 
as never before curdled the air from the lips of 
Leonard Talcott — a laugh made up of triumph and 
desperation. 

“The property is mine, as it was my father's 
before me. Help yourself if you can, 0 Jerome 
Talcott, in the grave where you 've lain for more 
than thirty years !” And the young man drew up once 


32 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

more toward the mantle, and then he turned away 
sullenly. He could not quite make up his mind to 
do this thing in the daylight. “I 11 come up to- 
night; that’s the time for it,” muttered Leonard 
Talcott; and he went to the secretary, and placed 
the old will in the secret drawer, among the dust, 
where it had lain so many years, and went out. 
Ah, he was not the same man that went into that 
chamber three hours before! 

At dinner his aunt wondered what had come over 
her nephew, he was in such unusual spirits — full of 
laughter, talk, and jests; and she smiled as she 
passed him a second cup of coffee. “Well, Leon- 
ard, it is very certain that you can bid defiance to 
all elemental influences, if you can keep up your 
spirits such a day as this. Why, I was half a mind 
to have a fit of the blues myself.” 

“Yes, aunty” — setting down his cup with such 
emphasis on the table that the delicate china rang 
sharply with the collision — “I am of the pachy- 
dermatous kind; and it takes something vastly more 
powerful than a rainy day to reach any vulnerable 
spot in me. I ’m weather-proof, physically and 
mentally.” 

Notwithstanding the storm deepened as the after- 
noon advanced, the young man insisted that he 
would ride out, and his aunt vainly expostulated 
with him. He parried all her attempts to dissuade 
him from going out with jest and expostulation, 
till at last he came nearer getting angry with her 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


33 


than he had ever been since he was a boy. “What 
is the matter with Leonard?” muttered the lady to 
herself, as she watched her nephew dash down the 
avenue, and the gray sheets of rain hid him from 
her view. 

He did not return till it was quite dark, and, 
notwithstanding he was thoroughly drenched, in- 
sisted that he had had a capital ride. 

After tea he seemed uneasy and restless for a 
while; and then his old tender manner to his aunt 
returned. He came and sat down by her, and, she 
could not tell just how, led her into talking of her 
youth, of his father, and of his great-uncle; and 
one thing led to another, and she went on telling 
him stories, and he asking questions, till the night 
grew late— and still the winds rose and the rain 
strengthened, and there was no sign of moon or 
stars. 

That night, when, after an unusually-tender 
parting betwixt Mrs. Lathrop and her nephew, the 
young man went to his own room, he paused a mo- 
ment as he reached the passage which led to the 
chamber in which the old secretary stood, and de- 
bated with himself irresolutely. “Hot to-night,” 
he said at last; “to-morrow will do as well.” And 
he went to his room, and his sleep was broken, and 
full of troubled, feverish dreams that night. 

The next day was more stormy than its predeces- 
sor; for, though in the early morning Hiere was a 
promise of sunshine, the clouds triumphed and cur- 
3 


34 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


tained the sky afresh, and the wind rose and added 
its fury to the rain; and this day Mrs. Lathrop did 
not find her nephew insensible to the weather, for 
he inveighed bitterly against the rain, and he read 
the papers awhile; and his state of mind seemed 
pendulous betwixt moodiness and boisterous glee. 

After dinner the storm lulled; and again Mrs. 
Lathrop’s pale, sweet face watched at the window 
while her nephew rode down the avenue again ; and 
this time there was real anxiety in her tones as she 
said, “ Something has come over Leonard!” At 
supper it was no better. He seemed in some moody 
abstraction, and answered his aunt’s questions in a 
careless way, which showed he hardly understood 
them. 

After tea he did not join her in the sitting-room, 
as was his custom, but went into the library, and 
walked up and down the room with a brooding, des- 
perate face. 

“ There ’s no use in putting this thing off any 
longer,” muttered to himself Leonard Talcott. 
“It 's got to be done, and I 'd better face it, and — 
and have it over.” And he went up stairs. 

The storm was broken. He drew aside the cur- 
tains, and saw among the white sheets of flying 
clouds the golden clusters of the stars, and as they 
looked down on him, with their pure, solemn, stead- 
fast faces, he could not bear it. Ho stars should be 
witness to the deed he was about to do. He drew 
the curtains, and then he turned and walked to the 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 35 

secretary with a resolute step, and the Temptation 
came and walked close by his side. 

He drew out the will from the concealed drawer, 
and his breath came hard, and his face was white, 
and he went to the light with the paper crumpled 
up tight in his hands. 

“How ’s your time,” whispered the Temptation; 
“you’ll never breathe free till it’s over with; and 
when it ’s once done this property, which neither 
the dead nor the living have any right to defraud 
you of, will be safe in your own hands; the quicker 
you put the thing through the better.” 

And then Leonard Talcott lifted the paper to the 
small jet of flame — it almost scorched the corner — 
and suddenly he drew it away. “Stop one moment 
before you do this deed, Leonard Talcott,” whis- 
pered a voice in his soul; “think what you will be 
after it — a dishonored, disloyal man; the sin will be 
on your soul, and the crime on your life. Ho mat- 
ter if no mortal ever knows it, you will; you must 
carry the consciousness, eating and burning into 
your soul, that, honored as you may be of men, 
you are no better than a thief or a forger; for, put 
it as you will, it is sin and crime before God and 
man to destroy that will.” 

It was a terrible crisis for Leonard Talcott — a 
crisis out of which a man never comes as he was 
before ; he is either a great deal better or a great 
deal worse. For nearly two days the forces of good 
and evil had been battling in his soul, and now had 


36 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


come the deadly strife — one or the other must con* 
quer ! 

No wonder the heart of Leonard Talcott seemed 
to stand still, and great drops, wrung out of that 
strife — which was not of the body, but of the soul — 
stood still on his forehead. 

Then the Temptation clutched him again : “ What 
is to become of you, man, if you hesitate now?” it 
whispered; “will you go out into the world a beg- 
gar ? Lor it ’s come to that now. What ’ll life be 
worth to you when your fortune ’s gone ? Put an 
end to the one, and you might just as well to the 
other. The land is yours — the money ’s yours. 
Fool ! why do you hesitate ? This is n’t robbery ; 
it>^%eally defrauding no man — only keeping what 
is your right. Do n’t quibble any longer. Burn 
up that will, and get rid of the matter.” 

He lifted his hand again, and the curl of flame 
almost caught the paper. Another moment, and 
the deed would have been done! 

“Wait one moment,” said the old voice, which 
had been speaking through all the storm and tu- 
mult which had been in his soul for the last two 
days. “You call yourself an honorable gentleman 
now. There is not a living man before whom you 
have reason to blush for an act of your life. And 
is this, this will, Leonard Talcott, your price — the 
price of your honor, the price of your soul? 

“ Which is worth the more, your fortune or your 
honesty ? And will it pay to go through your whole 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


37 


life living a lie, stealing that which is not yours — • 
for, put it as you will, that is the true word — or by 
one brave effort declaring before God and men that, 
let come what will, you have dene right and justice 
to your own hurt ?” 

The hand which held the crumpled will had sunk 
closer to his side. Suddenly Leonard Talcott looked 
up. The shadow had gone from his face, light and 
strength were there. “I will not do this sin/’ said 
Leonard Talcott; “get thee behind me, Satan!” 

And the listening angels rejoiced ! And the 
Temptation passed forever from the side of Leon- 
ard Talcott, for he had triumphed! 

It might be an hour later that the young man 
entered the room where his aunt sat reading. * >£J 
have been expecting you a long time,” she said, as 
he sat down by her side. 

“ I suppose so ; but, aunty, there has been some- 
thing on my mind for the last two days.” 

“I was sure of it, my dear boy, and that you 
would speak when the right time came;” and she 
smiled on him, but faintly, for there was something 
in her nephew’s face that troubled the lady. 

“You shall know all about it, aunt Ellen. But, 
first, I ’ve a story — a short one — to tell you.” 

“Go on, Leonard,” said the lady. 

“It happened, not many years ago, that a young 
man, who was possessor of a large fortune which he 
had inherited from his father, discovered, while 
searching among some old letters and documents, a 


38 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


concealed will, which gave his entire property to a 
distant relative — this property, which had belonged 
to the young man all his life, and to his father be- 
fore he was born. You hear me, aunt Ellen?” 

“ Every word, dear,” answered the lady; and, 
although her face was intent, her nephew saw 'that 
she did not suspect the truth. 

“Well, this will, which the young man discovered 
accidentally, stripped him of every dollar of his 
great fortune, and sent him out into the world pen- 
niless. It was very hard.” 

“Very hard, Leonard;” and the soft voice of the 
lady was full of sympathy. 

“And no one in the world knew of the existence 
of this will, and never could unless the young man 
himself disclosed it; and by doing so he must, as 
you see, ruin himself. 

“Do you wonder that there went on a long, ter- 
rible struggle in his soul?” 

“I can not wonder,” answered the lady. 

“And now, aunt Ellen — you are a good woman — 
answer me, as you would answer before God, What 
was it that young man's duty to do? Ought he to 
reveal this will when it would inevitably ruin him 
to do it?” 

Mrs. Lathrop looked up in amazement at this 
solemn adjuration; but there was something in her 
nephew’s face which held all exclamation in check, 
although, of course, she was as far as ever from 
suspecting the real truth. 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


And she answered her nephew as before God : “ I 
think, Leonard, it was his duty to make known 
this will; that however hard it might be for him, 
still that will made the fortune no longer his; he 
had no right to keep it.” 

“Aunt Ellen,” dropping his head so that she 
might not see his face, “/ am that young man!” 

He felt her hand clutch at his shoulders. “ Look 
up, look up, Leonard ! What do you mean ?” 

It was best the worst should come at once now. 

“It means, aunty, that I have found up stairs, in 
the old secretary, the last will of Jerome Talcott, 
which bequeathed his entire property to his nephew, 
William Talcott.” 

An hour later the aunt and nephew were sitting 
close together — close and calm. She had come to 
know, to realize it all at last; to know what it 
meant for the present and the future; and Mrs. 
Lathrop was not a woman to flinch from any duty 
appointed her. Her nephew knew that, gentle and 
loving as she was, she would not shrink from any 
path which she felt to be the right, although it led 
to suffering and to death. So he looked at her, 
with sorrow and tenderness struggling together in 
his face. “I knew, aunt Ellen, it would come ter- 
ribly hard on you to go out from the old home, 
where we ’ve passed so many happy years together; 
but I knew, too, that thought would not alter the 
counsel you would give to me in this matter. But 
my sorrow was not altogether for my own sake.” 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


“My dear boy, don’t think of me; I shall not 
for myself, only to feel that I have brought this on 
you; for the first coolness betwixt your father and 
uncle Jerome was occasioned by my marriage. Your 
uncle was bitterly opposed to it, because my hus- 
band and he entertained different political opinions, 
and that is the reason why he cut me off in his will. 
Lewis and my husband, as you know, were class- 
mates, and the warmest of friends, and that in- 
censed our uncle.” 

“ It was his fault. I shall not allow you to blame 
yourself. And now the struggle is over and the 
decision made, I feel better and stronger than be- 
fore.” 

“My darling boy” — and her glance was fond 
through her tears — “I never loved and honored 
you as I do this night. 0, I thank God that, what- 
ever comes to us, my boy has been true to himself, 
to right, and justice!” 

And it seemed to Leonard Talcott then, that those 
words were worth more than all his lost wealth. 

“And we shall still have each other, aunty, with 
the old love and cares.” 

“Yes, let come what will, we will stand fast by 
each other to the end.” And the lady’s smile was 
sweet and brave through her tears. 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


41 


CHAPTEE III. 

Having once thoroughly settled with himself and 
his God his course of action, Leonard Talcott set 
resolutely about its execution. 

The day after he had disclosed to his aunt the 
contents of Jerome Talcott’s last will, he wrote to 
his cousin, Lester Talcott, acquainting him with the 
fortune which had, in so sudden and singular a 
manner, fallen to him, inviting him to come at once 
and take possession of his new estate, and affirming 
his willingness to leave it without delay. 

This done, Leonard Talcott breathed freer. All 
the true manliness, all the fine heroic elements in 
his character, which Dr. Beynolds and Guy Kenyon 
had felt and loved, developed their moral forces at 
this time. They softened the sting of pain which 
the young man sometimes felt at the thought of 
leaving Cedarwild, the name with which his father 
had so fitly christened his home, in honor of the 
beautiful grove of cedars at the right of the house. 
Yet Leonard Talcott could wander through the old 
rooms, and amid the pleasant grounds, and look them 
serenely in the face, remembering that after all there 
was something dearer to him than they, even just- 
ice and righteousness. 

When a man has sacrificed all things for these 
he will not be left comfortless. The former heir of 


42 


TEMPTATION AND TKIUMPH. 


Cedarwild walked amid all that he had lost with a 
prouder step and serener bearing than he had done 
when he held himself their rightful owner. 

Mrs. Lathrop turned away often to hide the tears 
which suddenly filled her eyes when she saw the 
new light in her idol’s face, the new ring and fervor 
in his voice, for there had come a new strength 
and force to her nephew’s life, which none could 
fail to see and feel — the strength which comes of 
self-sacrifice, of triumphing over temptation. 

In a few days the reply of Lester Talcott was 
received. From the beginning Mrs. Lathrop had 
an intuition that her nephew would not be dealt 
honorably and generously with by the new proprie- 
tor of Cedarwild. 

She had not seen him for many years, for he had 
passed the prime of his manhood in India, where 
he had been engaged in business, and he must be 
over fifty by this time. 

Mrs. Lathrop remembered him as a cold, reticent, 
somewhat supercilious man, who had impressed her 
unfavorably on the few times she had chanced to 
meet him; a man, it seemed to her, of a narrow, 
unsympathetic nature; and the little which she 
had heard of the gentleman, from those who knew 
him, had confirmed her intuitions respecting the 
real essence of this man, Lester Talcott. 

But Mrs. Lathrop was certainly not prepared for 
the cold, businesslike tone of her relative’s answer. 
He was evidently ready to take possession of his 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


43 


new fortune without any scruples, and with perfect 
self-complacency; nay, he apparently regarded him- 
self and his father as grievously wronged, because 
they had been kept out of it so long, although it 
was quite impossible to attach any blame to either 
his living or his dead relative for the late discovery 
of the true will. 

The new proprietor of the estate was certainly 
haunted with none of those scruples which most 
men would have experienced on this occasion. 

And most men, too, would have apprehended the 
sacrifice which had been made so promptly and so 
nobly, for no one could fail to see the struggle it 
must have cost; and by what specious sophistries a 
man of unblemished integrity might have reasoned 
himself into thinking that this property was, after 
all, his own; and that a will made in a fit of rage, 
and most probably in failing strength of mind and 
body, which rendered it doubtful whether the maker 
thereof was in full possession of his faculties, ought 
not to render the former will, which embodied the 
great promise and purpose of his life, “null and 
void.” 

And, certainly, any man whose interests had been 
so entirely at the mercy of another as had Lester 
Talcott’s at his cousin’s, with nothing but the lat- 
ter’s sense of right and justice in the way of his 
holding what no power in the world but his own 
testimony could have wrested from him — any man 
must, it will be presumed, feel under vast obliga- 


44 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


tions to one who had resigned so much in his favor 
for conscience’ sake. 

But it was evident that Lester Talcott was troub- 
led with no emotions of this kind. It is true that 
at the close of his cool and self-gratulatory letter 
he signified a willingness to serve his cousin in any- 
way which the other would suggest, and even offered 
Mrs. Lathrop a residence at Cedarwild, or, if the 
lady preferred, to settle a comfortable annuity upon 
her for life. 

Leonard Talcott tossed down the letter in indig- 
nation and disgust at this proof of his cousin’s mer- 
cenary nature. “I will never take a dollar from 
that miserable man’s hands — I will never see you, 
aunt Ellen.” 

“My darling,” said the lady, shaken out of her 
usual gentleness by the letter, which she regarded 
as simply an insult, although the writer did not 
intend it as such, “ I will work with my own hands 
for my daily bread, before I will soil my fingers 
with a gift from Lester Talcott.” 

“Dear aunty, you shall not soil your fingers with 
1 toil for your daily bread ’ either. I will take care 
of you.” 

The lady shook her head, amid her tears, not all 
of sorrow : “Ah, Leonard, my poor boy, you ’ll have 
enough to do to take care of yourself now!” 

“ No, aunt Ellen, I ’ve got a stout arm and a 
strong heart to shelter you; and though now I 
lament the confusions of my wasted youth, my lost 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


45 


opportunities, my squandered hours, when the time 
has come which calls for all the energy, force, and 
faculty I possess, to earn, as other men do, their 
bread by the toil of their brow, still, in this one 
thing I am determined, to earn it for you and for 
me.” 

She knew he would when she looked at his flash- 
ing eyes, at his resolute lips. “ Where shall we go, 
Leonard, my child?” 

“I don’t want to stay here any longer; the old 
associations crush me, the very air stifles me now it 
belongs to him . Let us go, aunty, together; the 
world is all before us where to choose.” 

He said this, spite of himself, in a tone of min- 
gled bitterness and pathos which cut Mrs. Lathrop 
to the heart; and yet she sympathized with her 
nephew’s desire to leave Cedarwild at the earliest 
practicable moment. 

So it was settled in that interview that the change 
in Leonard Talcott’s fortunes should be made public 
at once, and that he should that very evening write 
to an ‘eminent lawyer in the city — an old friend of 
his father’s, and because of it a friend to his son — 
relating all which had transpired, and earnestly de- 
siring him to obtain a situation in some law office, 
where Leonard could combine the study of his pro- 
fession with some practice in it. 

A few days brought the reply. The friend of 
Leonard’s father proved himself true to the name. 
His letter bore witness to his combined amazement, 


46 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


pain, and sympathy over all which had transpired, 
and his enthusiastic admiration of Leonard’s conduct. 
And the letter did not end here. The writer had 
sought to render Leonard just the practical service 
which he desired, and had procured him a situation 
in the office of a former partner of his, where he 
could obtain a salary of a thousand dollars a year. 
The duties would be somewhat arduous, the margin 
left for study not large, but the writer affirmed the 
situation presented a capital chance for a young 
lawyer to obtain a practical knowledge of his pro- 
fession, and one that had required the exertion of all 
the old Judge’s influence to obtain for his friend. 

“A thousand dollars!” It seemed small enough 
to a man who only the month before had held un- 
disputed possession of half a million. “ Can we live 
on that, aunty?” asked Leonard Talcott, laying 
down the letter and smiling not very bravely just 
then. 

“ 0 yes, my boy ! Many clergymen, doctors, and 
lawyers manage to support large families on that 
sum; and you don’t suspect what a capital econo- 
mist I can be. I learned that in my early married 
life, you see.” 

“Well, it will at least teach us to make our 
wants as few as possible. I think I shall close up 
with this offer, aunt Ellen, till the way opens for a 
better.” 

“We must go into the country and rent some 
pretty cottage there. It will be easy to find one 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


47 


large enough for you and me, Leonard. I ’ve got 
some diamonds that, as you know, I have never 
worn, and the sale of these will furnish the little 
house neatly and tastefully, and I can. get along with 
a single servant well enough.” 

Leonard Talcott looked up with a flash of his old 
mirth. He had been grave enough, but not op- 
pressed of late. “Must I split the wood and carry 
the water, aunt Ellen?” 

“Hot so bad as that, my dear.” 

And then they both went into plans about this 
little cottage, and their life there, which continu- 
ally suggested such ludicrous contrasts with the 
old habits and style of living, that both aunt and 
nephew could not refrain from laughter, and really 
began to take pleasure in talking about the future 
that to one of them, at least, had something of the 
charm of novelty and romance. Nobody, to have 
looked at them, would have suspected that these 
two had just lost all they had owned on earth, and 
were going out from their beautiful and luxurious 
home to do hard battle with the world, knowing 
not even where they should find a roof to shelter 
them. 

When the last will and testament of Jerome Tal- 
cott was made known, it took the whole world by 
surprise, and Leonard Talcott’s conduct in the mat- 
ter was the subject of wonder, admiration, and ap- 
plause on all sides. Letters crowded in upon him 
from his numerous friends, full of condolence and 


48 


TEMPTATION AND TPIUMPH. 


sympathy, and yet there were hardly any of the 
writers who comprehended either Leonard’s feelings 
01 the motives which had influenced him in the one 
great decision of his life. A very few there were 
that read its full scope and meaning, and drew from 
it glorious auguries for the future of the former heir 
of Cedarwild. 

The last evening of their stay here the aunt and 
nephew took a final walk through the grounds. 
Neither of them spoke. What emotions and mem- 
ories crowded and surged tumultuous over the 
young man’s soul as he gazed on the trees among 
which he had sported away the brightest years of 
his boyhood, on the old roof beneath which he had 
been born, and where he had hoped to die, could not 
be fathomed by any human speech ! 

That they were keen and bitter none can doubt; 
but one thought took away the fine quick of their 
anguish, and this was the right which he had 
held dearer than they. 

Never for one moment, during that walk which 
tried his soul so sorely, did Leonard Talcott regret 
the part he had acted — repent the sacrifice he had 
made; in the midst of all he rejoiced in it. 

The night was a beautiful one in the early Octo- 
ber. Cedarwild never looked fairer in its silver- 
flowing lake of moonlight. The large, stately, sub- 
stantial, but by no means pretentious mansion, 
standing in the distance like a vast gray tent, the 
white walks winding like a silver embossing through 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 49 

the dark green plush of grass — 0, never had Cedar- 
wild seemed half so beautiful to the eyes of Leonard 
Talcott as it did now — now that he was about to 
leave it; now that the old life of ease, of indulgence, 
of luxurious idleness, of elegance and pleasure was 
ending, and the new life of labor, and discipline, 
and sacrifice about commencing. 

They went in together at last, the aunt and 
nephew, both silent still, and both expressing by 
that silence the deep harmony and sympathy there 
I wa° betwixt these two. 

Mrs. Lathrop leaned close on his arm, and he 
held in his the small, soft hand. 

“ Come up stairs with me, aunt Ellen,” whispered 
Leonard, as they entered the house. So they went 
up into the chamber in which stood the old secre- 
tary, and the young man drew out the faded yellow 
document which had so changed his whole life. 

Leonard had retained the original, and forwarded 
a copy to his cousin, who was expected from South 
i America in two or three days. He unfolded and 
looked at it. There it was, the large, clear, and 
somewhat formal hand of Jerome Talcott. What a 
; fierce resentment must have burned in the old man’s 
soul when he wrote those words which disinherited 
; the nephew whom he had loved as a father does the 
joy and strength of his house, his first-born ! 

The will was made only a few weeks previous to 
his death. Would that stern, self- w 7 i lied nature 
! have repented, would the old tenderness have tri- 
4 


50 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


umphed over pride and resentment, if the man’s life 
had not been suddenly cut short? Two witnesses 
had signed their names to this instrument — one of 
them was the lawyer, the other the physician of 
Leonard’s ancestor. 

It was quite singular that three days before the 
death of his patient the physician had fallen from 
his horse in a fit, and never spoken afterward, and 
the lawyer had been suddenly stricken with a fever, 
and followed his client in a week. 

Mrs. Lathrop had known both the gentlemen 
well, and as she looked on this instrument a 
change suddenly came over her sad, intent face, 
and she looked up with a start. 

“0, Leonard!” 

“What is it, aunty?” wondering at her sudden 
agitation. 

“It is singular — it has just come back to me 
now, and I have forgotten it for all these years; it 
explains every thing.” 

The nephew could gather nothing from the lady’s 
incoherent talk, but in a moment her speech cleared 
itself. 

“I remember the night Lawyer Matthews died. 
Your father and mother happened to be at our 
house, and there came a sudden summons for the* 
former to the bedside of the sick man who was 
dying, and who had something to reveal to Lewis 
Talcott — something, so the message ran, relating to 
his uncle. We were in great consternation. Your 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 51 

father started off at once; but much time had been 
consumed in finding him, and when he reached 
the lawyers house he was dead! His secret was 
buried with him; but this has brought it at last to 
light.” 

“It must have been that. How strangely it all 
has come about, aunt Ellen!” 

“Yes, Leonard; but I have a feeling, a convic- 
tion, that there is some hidden meaning and pur- 
pose in all this thing which we shall live to see 
and rejoice in — something that is of God, not of 
man!” 

“I fancy Dr. Eeynolds would say that his wish 
has come to pass; at any rate, I’ve lost the fortune 
that he called my curse, and the time has come for 
me to go out and battle with the world.” 

He spoke with a grave smile, a little tinged with 
bitterness. And forgetting herself, as she always 
did, for his sake, Mrs. Lathrop led her nephew on 
to talk of their future — of the pretty little cottage 
they had been able to rent for a couple of hundred 
dollars, less than twenty miles from Hew York, 
near which the cars passed a dozen times a day; so 
that Leonard would be able to pass his evenings at 
home. 

It was a great comfort to the lady and gentleman 
to know that the only other face under that roof 
would be a familiar one; for the cook, who had 
lived with Leonard’s parents before his birth, had 
insisted, for love’s sake, upon accompanvins: her 


52 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


master and mistress, and sharing their humble home 
and fate. 

So the next day the three went out from Cedar- 
wild, amid the keen demonstrative grief of all the 
old domestics. The day following the new owner 
arrived. He was a widower and childless ; his head 
bald on the top, and his hair on either side tufted 
with gray. His 'skin had the yellow, dried, parch- 
ment look which persons usually have who reside 
long in tropical countries; a pompous, methodical 
man, somewhat rigid and reserved. “Not at all 
like the young master,” was the unanimous conclu- 
sion of the domestics. 


CHAPTER IV. 

A year and a half have passed. It was an even- 
ing in the opening of March, and Mrs. Lathrop sat 
in the pleasant sitting-room of the small cottage, 
which was her home and Leonard’s. 

It was a small room, but furnished with a sim- 
plicity and taste which would have gladdened an 
artist. A warm maroon tone pervaded every thing, 
the carpet, curtains, furniture. Mrs. Lathrop sat 
sewing by the small oval table. The gentle face 
was hardly altered. 

The Spring winds strive, and wrestle, and harrow 
the sodden earth outside, from which the noon suns 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 53 

have gathered with golden hands the white flannels 
of snow, and the lady sews with thoughts far away, 
and listens for the car-whistle through the tramp 
and the beat of the winds. 

“I wonder what kept Leonard over the last 
train l n murmurs the lady, turning down the edge 
of her cambric. “It is so seldom that he stays 
over.” 

And then suddenly she catches the car-whistle, 
the long, shrill sound rising up and triumphing 
over the struggle of the wind, and clearing its way 
through it sharp and clear as a blade. The work 
drops from Mrs. Lathrop’s lingers; she sits still and 
listens. Ten minutes, and the door opens and 
Leonard Talcott enters. 

To a superficial observer the young man is not 
much altered. A shade older his face may have 
grown, but when he speaks you feel some subtile 
change, for Leonard Talcott is not the same man 
that he was a year and a half ago. He never can 
be again. This year and a half has done much for 
him. It has strengthened, disciplined, compacted 
him. 

He has had, of course, much to learn; and of 
that kind of learning which comes only from conflict 
and experience, from facing and battling with the 
world, with temptation within and without. 

How could it be otherwise? This man, whose 
spiritual physiognomy I am trying to delineate for 
you, had much to struggle with. There were his 


54 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


old habits of self-indulgence to overcome; his old 
luxurious, extravagant tastes to repress ; prompt- 
ness, perseverance, patience — all these to learn. 
Ah, Leonard Talcott had put himself to a hard 
teacher, even to himself! 

He had had his blessings though. You might 
well have envied his feelings the day Dr. Beynolds 
made a journey from his academy for the purpose 
of shaking hands with his old pupil, of saying, with 
his eyes and lips, “God bless you, my boy! You Ve 
shown yourself a true hero, after all. I knew it 
was in you.” 

“What has kept you, Leonard?” asks Mrs. La- 
throp, meeting her nephew half-way. 

He bends down and kisses her. 

“At your old tricks, aunty. You promised never 
to fret yourself about me if I was n’t on hand with 
the train. What is a woman’s promise worth?” 

The voice is not that of a man who has been 
overcome; hearty, helpful, hopeful — with some new 
element of force and will in it, somewhat graver, 
as his face is, than it used to be. 

“Leonard, that is the severest thing yon ever 
said of my sex.” 

Mrs. Lathrop’s reproof loses its point in her 
smile. 

“It came in just at that moment, and saved me 
from answering your question, aunt Ellen, which, 
somehow, I was not quite prepared to do.” 

Mrs. Lathrop saw, by his look, that her nephew s 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 55 

answer would be of a grave nature, so she waited, 
saying, “ Martha will be in despair over her broiled 
chicken. We will have that first.” And they went 
out, arm-in-arm, into the little dining-room together, 
just as they used to in the great one at Cedarwild. 

After tea they sat down together before the 
bright grate-fire in the “little sitting-room, and 
Leonard watched with thoughtful eyes the fire, 
which lay like a glowing embroidery on the black 
ground of coals. 

At last he spoke. “Aunt Ellen, it was a matter 
of great importance which kept me over the train, 
to-night — one in which you, as well as I, are deeply 
interested.” 

“ Yes, Leonard.” 

“You remember my old classmate, Paul Irving, 
whom I have lost sight of so many years; and the 
Summer he passed at Cedarwild; and the fancy you 
each took to the other?” 

“I remember.” 

“ As brave, tender, generous a soul as ever 
breathed, but somehow always baffled in his strug- 
gle with the world, Paul broke down in business 
and in health, and went to California, taking his 
fragile young wife and two children with him. The 
climate was not very kind to any of them. The 
young mother died in a year, and Paul's heart was 
broken. He kept up, for his children’s sake, for 
another year. Then the fever took him, and the 
dying man was troubled with thoughts of his boy 


56 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

and girl, and of leaving them friendless in that 
strange land. A friend — a humble but faithful 
one — watched with him to the last. And, standing 
by his dying bed, Paul Irving made this friend sol- 
emnly covenant with him to bring his children to 
the East, and give them to my care, entreating 
me for the old friendship not to forsake his father- 
less boy and girl, but to take them as his last gift, 
and give them good shelter and tender love under 
the roof of Cedarwild; for it seems the poor fellow 
never learned the change which had overtaken us. 
There were last, tender, touching messages to you, 
too, aunt Ellen, which you will hear from the lips 
of this humble friend, who so faithfully fulfilled his 
trust, and brought the children with him from Cal- 
ifornia. They are stopping for a day or two with 
a relation of his.” 

Mrs. Lathrop looked up through her tears. “You 
have not seen them?” she asked. 

“Not yet; it was too late to-night.” 

There was a little silence. 

“Aunt Ellen, these children bequeathed to my 
care by their dying father — what shall be done 
with them?” 

“ You must answer, my dear boy.” 

“Not I alone. They will be a terrible care and 
anxiety for you?” 

“But if it were not for me, Leonard — if any 
thought of me were quite out of the question?” 

“I should take them.” 


TEMPTATION AND TEIUMPH. 


57 


“Then take them now.” 

He leaned forward and kissed her. Then her 
mother-heart woke up for her darling. 

“But, Leonard, what a burden you will take on 
your young manhood! You do not consider, you 
do not understand what an expense it will be for 
you, and we have little enough now for ourselves.” 

“I have thought of all that, aunt Ellen; but I 
can not leave these children of Paul’s to suffer and 
die, any m-ore than I could if they were my own.” 
And the face of Leonard Talcott was beautiful. 

“We will go together and see them to-morrow,” 
said Mrs. Lathrop. 

So it was settled. 


CHAPTEE Y. 

At the window of the little red school-house she 
stood a moment, and looked out. The sky had a 
quenched, hopeless, bewildered face, as though it 
was desolate for its lost sunshine; the earth looked 
up to it anguished, amazed — all grace and beauty 
blotted out of it. It had rained with a slow, dead 
steadiness for four nights and days. The grass, 
what was left of it, was matted into a dark yellow 
flannel; the naked branches were soaked and drip- 
ping; there was a damp chill in the air which 
crept into the nerves with a sensation like pain. 


58 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


and any eyes which searched the face of nature 
for promises, help, or consolation, found there only 
loss, pallor, despair. 

And she — of whom I now write, standing at the 
window of the little red school-house of Woodleaf, 
with her young, pale, oval face, in which now some 
hidden loss and hunger came out, and wrote itself 
in every fine, soft lineament — found no olive-branch 
for her soul. 

The clouds and the rains had fallen into her life 
now; it seemed, as she gazed, that the day without' 
typified the day within, and the tears rose — large, 
salt, quiet tears — and fell slowly down that rare, 
fine, sweet face watching at the window of the red 
school-house. 

The scholars were all gone. The bare, soiled 
walls, the barren floor, the long, defaced seats, 
made a cold, ghastly background for the young 
teacher; and in that hour her life seemed to her 
as lost, and colorless, and bewildered a thing as the 
day of which I write. 

She was somewhere among her early twenties. 
She was orphaned of father and mother, and had 
but one near relative in the world, and he was this 
only in name; for in all the true spirit and meaning 
of that word, Philip, the brother of Edith Frank- 
lin, was as though he were not. 

Their father had been a clergyman, well-nigh 
worshiped in his large parish in a rambling old 
town among the mountains of New Hampshire. 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 59 

He had spent his life here. Ho enticing perspec- 
tives of higher position and greater emolument 
could induce the clergyman to leave the Church 
where he had been settled in his youth, and where 
he toiled till the years ripened his locks, as the 
days ripen the year into snows. 

He was an old man when they laid him under 
the willows by his wife, and his young daughter 
could just recall her mother, standing away off in 
the dawn of her memory. She was in the middle 
of her teens when her father left her with a dying 
charge to his son never to fail his sister in watch- 
ful care and tenderness — and Philip Franklin had 
solemnly covenanted with his dying father to do 
this thing, and meant to; but, alas! he was cursed 
with infirmity of purpose, with an easily-influenced 
and vacillating nature, with an indolent and self- 
ishly-indulgent temperament, and the right things 
which he meant to do these he never did. 

At times he was impulsively fond and generous; 
at others, irritable, exacting, selfish. This sister 
clung to him with self-abnegating devotion — for he 
was all that was left of her family — and though she 
had the finest instincts of right and justice, still it 
was natural that she should be slow to learn her 
brother’s faults; and so she long heaped his super- 
ficial and shallow nature with the richness and fra- 
grance of her own. 

Her father had during his lifetime saved a few 
thousand dollars. Edith was a natural student, and 


60 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

this money enabled her to complete the thorough 
education of which her father had laid the founda- 
tions. Her brother squandered his own, and man- 
aged to get all his sisters property into his hands 
by the false representations he made to her. 

The young man had a fine person and fascinating 
social qualities. He fell into evil company, dissi- 
pated habits, and at last Edith’s eyes were opened 
to the real character of her brother. 

But she clung to him; his occasional visitations 
of remorse, his promises of reform, made her pitiful 
and hopeful, although these were sure in the end 
to disappoint her. 

Her brother’s inefficiency aroused all the latent 
courage, energy, and endurance of Edith’s character. 
She had many friends in the old New Hampshire 
town, both for her father’s sake and her own, and 
she succeeded in establishing a day-school, which 
promised to expand into a flourishing academy, for 
whatever this girl set her will to do that she 
would do well. 

Her brother failed in all his undertakings ; and, at 
last, a strong desire took possession of him to come 
to the city. An opening as book-keeper soon pre- 
sented itself in a commercial establishment. Edith 
feared the temptations to which the mercurial na- 
ture of her brother would be exposed, and strongly 
combated his determination to go to the city. But 
it was in vain. Philip was resolved on this migra- 
tion, and implored his sister to accompany him, for 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 61 

his weaker nature felt the need of her strength and 
moral force to rest upon. 

So at last Edith yielded to his entreaties, re- 
linquished her school, and followed her brother to 
the city. 

She had no friends in the metropolis, but she 
was not of a nature to remain long idle, and when, 
through the influence of some acquaintances she 
made, at the house where she boarded with her 
brother for six months, the charge of the district 
school was offered her, she accepted it. 

It was a hard, lonely, toilsome life for the deli- 
cate, sensitive girl- woman; but she heaped every 
duty and sacrifice with the fragrance and gracious- 
ness of her nature, and wherever her work fell 
Edith Franklin did it with her might, with that 
brave, cheerful, conscientious spirit which is “as 
unto God.” 

For a while all went well with Philip. And in 
the midst of the hard, wearing toil with which each 
day burdened her, the heart of his sister turned 
with hope and joy to the future of her brother. 

But the old fears and not the new hopes were the 
true prophets. After a while the evening train did 
not bring Philip Franklin regularly from the city 
to the pleasant old farm-house where he and his 
sister boarded, and the slow watching, the long 
heart-ache, the wearing anxieties that have been 
through all ages the lot of womanhood, fell to the 
portion of Edith Franklin. 


62 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


Her brother fell into temptation; went from bad 
to worse. Brief compunctions of conscience, weak 
efforts at reform, which had no deep roots of prin- 
ciple, were only followed by new failure and dis- 
grace. The clergyman’s son became thoroughly 
dissipated, lost his place; his broken-hearted but 
still brave, sister was often obliged to defray the 
expenses of his board, although he avoided her as 
much as possible after his fall. The silent reproach 
in that young, fair, pale face was more than even 
he could well bear. And that day, as Edith Frank- 
lin stood at the window and looked on the dreary, 
dumb earth, it seemed to her that her life stretched 
before her as blank, and desolate, and baffled as 
that day was — going down into the night; and the 
old cry of the Psalmist seethed up from her heart 
to her lips, as it has from so many human hearts, 
“How long, 0 Lord, how long!” 

But the night was beginning to fall, and her road 
lay over the hills, through that cold rain and those 
drenched and beaten fields, a mile off to her home. 
She locked the little school-house once more and 
went out. 

The wind came up with the night. Perhaps the 
weakness which had come over the girl’s spirit 
dominated the delicate frame for the time. The 
young teacher could hardly make her way, and she 
could not hold her umbrella against the wind; it 
caught and whirled it contemptuously in the small 
hands, whose force was not sufficient to control it. 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. G3 

And so, battling with the wind and rain, the 
small figure, in its brown garments, caught the 
eyes of a young man who was walking rapidly from 
the depot toward the main road in the town of 
Woodleaf. 

There was something singularly picturesque and 
pitiful in that one dainty, desolate figure against 
the dead landscape. A graceful, womanly figure, 
too — a lady's , by grace of birth or gift of God. 
You knew that, as far as your eyes could see it — a 
figure that, somehow, to this one pair of eyes seemed 
to make some appeal for warmth, color, shelter. 

The young man made better headway against the' 
wind than the solitary lady, and in a little while 
came up with her as she struggled through the 
storm. 

A blast, fiercer than ever, struck her umbrella, 
dashed her and it suddenly around, and Leonard 
Talcott and Edith Franklin stood, for the first time, 
face to face. 

That fair, sweet, wonderful face — not so mourn- 
ful but a true observer could see that it held in it 
all sweet possibilities of smiles and infinite revela- 
tions of light and gladness — that fine, delicate, 
most womanly face struck and thrilled Leonard 
Talcott as the face of no woman had ever done. 

The wind had fairly scourged up some false roses 
to the pale cheeks; the sad mouth was flushed as, 
with a start that was partly nervousness and partly 
surprise, she turned it up to the young man. 


64 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


Leonard Talcott acted almost involuntarily on his 
first impulse: “Madam,” he said, “you will not be 
able to hold your umbrella against the wind ; won’t 
you take shelter under mine?” 

And as he spoke the wind answered for the young 
lady, closing her umbrella and driving her right 
under Leonard Talcott’s with such force that she 
fairly fell against him. 

All strength of body and will seemed for the 
moment driven out of Edith. She said, with the 
faint, grieved look of a tired child, “ I do n’t see as 
I shall ever be able to get home.” 

“Yes, you shall. If you will take my arm, I 
will see that you reach there safely,” answered 
the frank, kindly voice of the stranger to Edith 
Franklin. 

She looked up into his face — a strong, manly, 
true face — a face for any woman to trust in any 
need — one that would deal by her reverently and 
tenderly, as a man would by his own mother. 

Edith Franklin took the arm of the stranger. 
The wind beat, and the rain fell in dead, slow, 
chilly sleets, but Edith had no more struggle with 
the elements. 

She did not speak till they came to a sudden turn 
in the road. “This is the way,” said the lady; “I 
board at Deacon Eamsey’s. It’s only half a mile 
further on.” 

By this time some warmth and courage had got 
back to the small, chilled figure. 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 65 

“I am glad for your sake, ma’am. This is not 
the weather for a lady to be out.” 

“No; but I must obey a higher law than that 
of the weather;” and a little, proud, sad smile ac- 
companied the words. 

Her companion bowed. Whatever curiosity he 
might feel respecting the higher law which con- 
trolled her he was quite too courteous to betray it. 
Edith felt this in a moment. “I mean that I am 
the district school-teacher,” she added, simply. 

He looked at her again — a look which said he 
thought her out of place there, and that had, be- 
yond this, interest and sympathy. 

They had reached the old farm gate now. He 
held it open, and went in with her up to the great 
portico, under whose shelter neither the wind nor 
rain could reach her. 

Then she turned round and held out her hand, 
and looked in his face with a little smile — a fine, 
sweet, frank smile. 

“You have been very kind, sir, to me,” she said; 
“I hope some good angel will remember it of you, 
and put it some time into the heart of a stranger 
to serve you when you need it, as you have me.” 

It was a pretty, original way of acknowledging 
her indebtedness, and the feeling which prompted 
it brought her face out of the chill and desolation 
in which he had seen it, ten minutes before, into 
life and warmth. 

“Thank you; I hope that good angels next time 

5 


66 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

will put it into some heart to render you better 
and higher service than I have done.” 

And he went away. At the gate the wind struck 
his face again; hut it had changed. “The rain is 
over, the sun will shine to-morrow,” said Leonard 
Talcott. 

Before he reached the main road again, he met a 
couple of men, apparently in great haste, who in- 
quired eagerly the way to Deacon Bamsey’s. 

He informed them, and they hurried on, while he 
felt a singular impulsion to stop them, and inquire 
what their errand was. But this, at the least, 
would be intrusive, and so Leonard Talcott, too, 
kept on — to the home where warmth, and love, and 
fragrance awaited him. 

Edith Franklin had hardly removed her hat 
and cloak, when the deacon’s wife called her in 
a voice full of some undiscovered alarm and fore- 
boding. 

She hurried down in some vague terror, and 
found two men there with a message for her, which 
the farmers kindly wife tried to deliver with a face 
that her voice contradicted. 

Edith soon got at the truth of the matter through 
the strangers. A man had sprung off from the cars 
about six miles from Woodleaf, when they were 
going at full speed. The train was stopped, he was 
picked up insensible and conveyed to the nearest 
depot, a couple of miles off. A surgeon was pro- 
cured, who said that the stranger was injured 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 67 

internally, and probably fatally. He had told the 
conductor that he wished to alight at Woodleaf, at 
the station nearest Deacon Bamsey’s. And so the 
rough but kindly men had started off to acquaint 
the man's friends, if he had any, with the accident. 
The conductor thought he was somewhat intoxicated 
when he spoke to him. 

Edith Franklin did not faint, not even did she 
cry. She covered her face with her hands, and 
listened to all which the men said. They could see 
her shiver from head to foot, that was all. 

When she took her hands away, her face was 
white as faces frozen in death. “ It is my brother,” 
she said, “I must go to him.” , 

Three quarters of an hour later she had reached 
the little depot, in the back room of which her 
brother lay — dead! 

A dark, cruel bruise on the temple was all the 
change which was visible in his face. He lay there, 
the brown rings of hair curling about the dark, 
handsome face; and Edith looked down on her 
brother, and forgot, for a moment, his soiled and 
sinful manhood, his lost, bankrupt life, the death in 
which there was no hope. They were the children 
of one father and mother, and she wept for him as 
the living weep for the dead. 

All that night she watched at the little depot 
with her dead brother, she and the kind-hearted 
deacon, who came late in the evening to take his 
place by the side of the lonely orphan. 


63 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


It was after midnight before Edith could induce 
the old man to lie down on the lounge in the little 
saloon; but at last her entreaties prevailed, and in 
a little while nature succumbed, and the old farm- 
er’s deep breathing showed that he had fallen into 
a heavy slumber. 

Then Edith stole back into the room where the 
body lay, uncovered the dead face, and looking on 
it there, her heart rose up in a fierce reproach 
against the dead, such as it had never uttered to 
the living. 

She thought of her blighted youth ; of her weary, 
desolate life ; of her lonely hours and broken hopes ; 
of all the wrong, the long, cruel, irretrievable years 
of wrong which she had suffered ; of the love which 
had been turned back on her hungry, aching heart; 
of all the sense of loss and desolation which it seemed 
to her then she must carry to her grave. And all 
her keen, deep sense of right and justice rose up for 
a moment against the dead — the dead who now had 
no power to redeem the past for her. 

With that thought the heart of Edith Franklin 
softened; the memory of the long-gone, happy child- 
hood in the old New Hampshire home came back 
and pleaded with her for her brother; the thought of 
the soul that had gone out burdened and alone to 
its Maker; of the many prayers with which his 
life had been anointed — all these things came over 
and melted the bitterness in the heart of Edith 
Franklin, and with a cry she sank down on her 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


69 


knees: “God forgive thee, freely as I do, Philip, 
mv brother!” she cried. And then her tears flowed 
sweet and healing as Ehe Summer rain. 


CHAPTER VI. 

“ Uncle Leonard, uncle Leonard, please to Open 
the door!” 

It was a sweet, pleasing child's voice which asked 
this question. And some very little fingers fumbled 
about the knob in an impatient, imperative fashion. 

Leonard Talcott was walking up and down the 
little sitting-room, which for once on his return he 
had found deserted. There was some doubt and 
perplexity on his face, and he was so absorbed that 
the little, impatient voice called several times before 
it reached him. As soon as it did, however, the 
cloud cleared from his face, and he went to the door 
with a little, tender, playful smile about his lips. 

“I believe somebody just called me, or was I mis- 
taken ?” 

“It was I, uncle Leonard. Please let me in,” 
soft and pleading, said the childish voice. 

“But who is I? that's what I want to know 
first,” winking to himself in a pleased way. 

“0, it’s Edna.” 

“ Edna, is it ? Certainly she may come in,” open- 
ing the door; and the little fairy creature which 


70 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

stood there sprang, with a leap and a shout, into 
his arms. Her brown curls, touched with gold, fell 
down on his shoulder, and her cheek, with the glow 
of a Summer peach in it, nestled softly against his 
own. 

“What were you doing here, uncle Leonard, all 
alone ?” 

“Walking up and down the room, and thinking, 
my darling. I didn't know but you had all run off 
and left me.” 

“0, no, no!” hastening to reassure him. “But 
Martha’s brother had just come in a great ship, and 
she must go and see him, and so aunt Ellen had to 
get the supper, and Paul and I were helping her.” 

“ Great help, I fancy,” muttered to himself Leon- 
ard Talcott; and he kissed the small, sweet face 
which with the last part of the speech had assumed 
an expression of much self-importance. “ But I 
shall put a stop to this;” and he hurried out to that 
part of the cottage which was the faithful cook’s 
especial domain. 

Mrs. Lathrop was just turning from the stove 
with a platter of tempting broiled chicken, while 
Paul followed her, carefully conveying a bowl of 
gravy. 

“Aunt Ellen, how could you!” was her nephew’s 
first expostulation, as he took the dish from her 
hand, and looked into her face, flushed and heated 
from her unusual labor. She smiled brightly in his 
face. “How could I get the dinner when Martha 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 71 

was gone? Surely there was no great cruelty in 
that, Leonard, as your look and words imply. But 
I meant to have had it ready by the time you got 
in. For once I did n’t hear the car- whistle.” 

“Dear aunty, you have enough on your hands 
without adding the cook’s labor too,” placing the 
chicken in the center of the table. 

“But this was an unusual occasion. Sit down, 
Leonard, and see whether my chicken does n’t sur- 
pass her3,” said Mrs. Lathrop, removing her apron, 
while the children crowded around Leonard. 

Paul Irving was in absolute contrast to his sister, 
a dark, beautiful, jet-eyed and black-haired boy, just 
seven, and two years her senior. 

“There’s something in your pocket, uncle Leon- 
ard,” he said, with a bright conviction in his face, 
after making some tentative investigations about 
the entrance to that, to him, enchanted territory. 

Leonard looked down on him with a smile. “I 
shouldn’t wonder if there was something there, 
very large, and bright, and round, and yellow as 
the sunbeams, and that a little while ago was glow- 
ing like great golden blossoms through the dark 
green of trees that stood under the hot suns of 
Havana.” 

“0, I know, it’s oranges, Edna!” said the boy, 
turning his dark, glowing face to his fair-haired 
sister. 

“Well, we’ll have the dinner first, children; that 
will be sweeter than any Martha ever got for us.” 


72 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

It was a bright, pleasant meal at which the little 
family seated themselves. The happy voices of the 
children, the loving faces of the elder ones, the 
bright words, and the little jests, all added some 
new element of gladness to it. And yet Mrs. La- 
tlirop’s keen gaze soon discerned that some serious- 
ness or anxiety occupied her nephew’s thoughts; 
his face fell into gravity every few moments, and 
he had frequently to be aroused from this abstrac- 
tion. 

Before dinner was over Martha returned in a 
state of jubilant emotion. And after the family 
returned to the sitting-room, Paul and Edna ex- 
plored Leonard’s pockets, and drew out, with shouts 
of triumph, half a dozen large oranges, and he 
made lilies of two of these, and then watched the 
boy and girl as they devoured them with the eager, 
keen relish of childhood. 

“My precious children! Aunt Ellen, I wonder 
if I had a boy and girl of my own, if I should love 
them better than I do these of poor Paul Irving.” 

“Hardly, I think, my Leonard. How strangely 
life has turned out for us within the last three 
years !” 

“I know it. I was thinking it all over to-day, 
and asking my own heart whether I was not really 
as happy with the new work, and cares, and love as 
I was in the old time.” 

“And what did your heart say, Leonard?” 

“And my heart answered, ‘Yes.’” 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


73 


Mrs. Lathrop did not speak for a little while. 

“Leonard, this day has brought you some doubt 
or trouble?” 

“ There is no concealing any thing from you, dear 
aunty,” looking up with a smile, while his hand 
strayed among the brown curls, touched with gold, 
of Edna Irving. 

The lady awaited his further reply. 

“Well, the truth is, I ’ve had a new offer of busi- 
ness. An English gentleman, settled here for three 
or four years, wants a tutor for his two boys, among 
their early teens. The situation will, in many re- 
spects, be pleasant, and the salary will be fifteen 
hundred. We need the three more, aunt Ellen, 
sadly, our family has expended during the last 
year.” 

“It would be most acceptable, of course; but, 
Leonard, I know you would prefer to stay in your 
profession.” 

“Certainly; but I have learned to make ‘I must,’ 
not ‘I will/ the governing verb of my life.” 

“And does that mean that you will accept this 
new situation?” 

“I think so. Let us talk it over calmly, aunt 
Ellen.” 

“But you will make this sacrifice for my sake 
and the children’s, my poor boy. I will not con- 
sent to it.” 

Her nephew had to reason and plead with Mrs. 
Lathrop a whole hour before she was reluctantly 


74 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


persuaded to do this; but she was ; finally, seeing 
that Leonard’s mind was made up. 

Afterward he said to her, suddenly, “Aunt Ellen, 
you remember the young lady whom I accompanied 
to Deacon Bamsey’s in the storm last week?” 

“Yes.” 

“I learned, on the train, this evening, that a 
brother of hers — who, it appears, was her only 
near living relative — sprang from the cars that 
very night, in a state of intoxication, and was 
killed.” 

“0, how shocking!” 

“Shocking, indeed. He was interred here, two 
days later; and his sister has returned home to her 
friends in Hew Hampshire. It seems their father 
was a clergyman. I have not yet learned the 
lady’s name.” 

“ Poor girl ! What a blow it must have been ; and 
I was intending to call on her this very week.” 

“Yes; I shall never forget her face. I have 
never seen one like it; I wonder if I ever shall an- 
other?” said Leonard Talcott to himself, in a half- 
sad, half-troubled voice. But his aunt did not hear 
him, for just then the children called her. 

A little later Paul and Edna kneeled down before 
him, with their hands clasped, and their sweet faces 
bowed down, and said their evening prayers; and, 
listening reverently to those child- voices, the pale 
face of the young teacher vanished from the thoughts 
of Leonard Talcott. 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


75 


CHAPTER VII. 

Two years and a half more had passed. This 
day of which I am now to write was in the heart 
of June — a day of winds full of the musky fragrance 
of the ripening Summer — of sunshine spilling its 
golden joy on every object, and heaping and over- 
flowing the earth out of its own brimming fountains 
of light and gladness. 

The afternoon wind from the sea came cool over 
the meadows, and stirred the roses which made a 
red fire of bloom about the small cottage veranda. 
And here, on a small lounge, and carefully propped 
up with pillows, lay the pale, sweet face of Edna 
Irving. Leonard Talcott sat on one side fanning 
her gently with a great palm-leaf, or stroking the 
little waxen cheek out of which all the bloom and 
roundness had fallen; and then the little girl would 
lift her blue eyes to her foster-father’s, and smile 
sweetly and happily out of the content in her heart. 
And the pale, small lips would most likely motion 
for a kiss, which was sure to come, quick and 
tender as a mother’s to her sick child; and then 
the small arms, the little white, thin arms, would 
lift themselves feebly, and tighten about the young 
man’s neck, for Edna loved Leonard Talcott better 
than any thing on earth, better even than she did 
Paul or Mrs. Lathrop. 


76 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

She had been ill with a fever in the late Spring — 
nigh unto death for several weeks — and nothing but 
the most tender and assidu'ous care had saved the 
life that flickered so low in the pulse of Edna 
Irving. 

But the fever spent itself at last, and the little 
girl began to convalesce; but when they looked for 
the pleasant Summer days to bring the lost roses to 
her cheek, and the fleetness to her step, they did 
not come, and Edna lay still, and white, and pale, 
almost as the dead, on her pillows; and they could 
hardly see that she gained strength or appetite as 
they watched the child day by day. 

“It seems good, uncle Leonard, to be out on the 
veranda once more/' said the faint, sweet voice of 
the child, and her eyes sought the roses, burning 
thick, like live coals, among the dark leaves. 

“Does it, darling? It would seem better if Edna 
and I could have one of our old frolics up and down 
the veranda, and I could hear her quick breath 
and her glad laugh together, as she chased after 
me.” 

The old light came into the child’s eyes. She 
clapped her small hands, and half lifted her head, 
but it fell back again for weakness, and seeing it 
the heart of Leonard Talcott ached. 

There was another seat on the portico, and while 
this brief conversation transpired, Mrs. Lathrop 
came out with a large ripe banana on a small china 
plate, and smiling on Edna, said, as she sat down, 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 77 

“Uncle Leonard’s brought something she will like 
.this time.” 

The child looked at the tropical fruit a little wist- 
fully, and Leonard took out his fruit-knife, and pro- 
ceeded to strip the golden rind away, and then cut 
a creamy slice and offered it to the child. 

“Will you try and sit up, dear, and lean against 
me while you eat?” 

“Yes, uncle Leonard — what made you think of 
this?” 

“0, because I wanted to find something that my 
little bird wouldn’t peck at, just as the canary does, 
but would eat right down with a grand relish, just 
as she used to the oranges I brought her.” 

“I was well then, you know;” looking up with 
an apology in her face, as he lifted her tenderly and 
rested the shining head against his breast. 

“And would God you were that again!” thought 
Leonard Talcott. And Edna ate the slice of banana 
in the slow, languid fashion of an invalid whose ap- 
petite nothing can beguile. And when the uncle 
asked her if she would take another, she shook her 
head, and in a moment the blue eyes closed, and 
the child dropped asleep in the cool shade of the 
veranda. 

“Aunt Ellen, I do not like this,” said Leonard, 
in a low voice. 

“Neither do I. It is strange the child doesn’t 
gain any strength;” looking with tender solicitude 
on the pale, drooping face. 


78 


TEMPTATION. AND TRIUMPH. 


“ I ’ve had a private talk to-day with the doctor.” 

“You have?” 

“Yes; I couldn’t let my little flower droop like 
this!” 

“What does he say, my boy?” 

“He says the child needs change of climate; that 
medicine will do her no good; that she needs the 
bracing air of the mountains.” 

Mrs. Lathrop’s face fell, a sigh smothered itself 
on her lips. She had no answer for the doctor’s 
prescription. 

“Aunt Ellen,” speaking like a man who has 
made up his mind, and Leonard’s voice had grown 
to sound like this very often now, “you and Edna 
must go to the mountains for a couple of months.” 

Mrs. Lathrop looked at her nephew in a mixture 
of amazement and distress. “0, Leonard!” she 
said, “it can not be. We can not incur this great 
expense.” 

“We must, dear aunty. Edna’s recovery, her 
life perhaps, is at stake, and I have made up my 
mind to it.” 

“But, Leonard, have some mercy upon yourself. 
Just think what this long sickness has cost you. 
How in the world can you ever meet it all?” 

“Somehow, aunt Ellen; I must take, for the 
sake of those I love, some new lessons in economy. 
For instance, my best suit of clothes must last me 
another year, with a little rejuvenation at the 
tailor’s; just as you turn your old dresses and bon- 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 79 

nets, and made them look as good as new. Then 
I 'll do a little extra copying, and so manage to foot 
the bill. Of course, hotels, with their prices, are 
quite out of the question; but you can find some 
pleasant old farm-house among the mountains of 
New Hampshire, where Edna can get the free, 
bracing air which alone will bring back her lost 
appetite and strength.” 

Mrs. Lathrop leaned over to her nephew, and 
the tears ran swift over her fair, faded cheeks, as 
she said, “0, Leonard, I never felt the want of 
that lost property as I do at this hour!” 

And Leonard Talcott smiled a brave, manly, 
tender smile in his aunt's face. “Dear aunty, I 
do n't go mourning for it, neither must you for my 
sake.” 

“Yes; for yours, Leonard. Don't I see, my boy, 
for whom I would gladly lay down my life, that 
you are toiling away the best years of youth in 
this endless drudgery of teaching — teaching to sup- 
port me and the children! I know that your heart 
and your ambition are with your profession, no 
matter with what patience and courage you keep on 
from day to day, and from year to year, for the 
sake of those you love, at this other work. 0, 
Leonard, it seems sometimes as if the knowledge 
of this would break my heart !” 

And Leonard Talcott leaned over and kissed the 
wet cheeks reverently and fondly, as a son would 
his mother's. “Aunt Ellen,” he said, “it is God 


80 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


wlio has appointed me this work, who will give mo 
patience and strength to fulfill it faithfully, and 
who has taught me how sweet it is to work and to 
sacrifice ourselves for those whom we love." 

“But the beloved do not feel the work and the 
sacrifice the less keenly ; and sometimes this thought 
which I carry, a great burden in my heart by night 
and by day, fairly overwhelms me. I remember 
Lester Talcott, and I wonder that some especial 
judgment of God does not overtake him for the 
wrong he has done you, and it seems as though I 
must sit down and write to this hard, miserly, cruel 
man all that is in my heart." 

The face of the young man flushed crimson. 
“Never, aunt Ellen, never condescend to do this 
thing. He would only regard the letter as an ap- 
peal to his charity; and, so long as God gives me 
health and strength, I will save you from that." 

At that moment the little front gate opened, and 
Paul Irving’s dark, bright face bounded along the 
walk, full of keen surprise and joy at seeing the 
family assembled on the veranda. 

“Ah, Paul, you ’re home early this afternoon," 
said his uncle, holding out his hand. 

“Yes; school closes half an hour earlier Wednes- 
days, you know. 0, isn’t it nice, uncle Leonard? 
I wish we could always live outdoors.” 

“Provided it was always June, you mean. But 
next January, when the winds blow, and the snow 
falls, and your nose gets blue if you put it outside 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


81 


the door what then, my boy?” laughed Leonard 
Talcott. 

Paul looked as though this was a side of the 
question which he had not yet contemplated, and 
after watching the child's face with amused. eyes for 
a few moments, Leonard changed the topic most 
agreeably to the boy by saying, “Come, see what 
you can do with the rest of this banana, only be 
quiet, so as not to awake Edna.” 

But as Paul took the plate, and thrust the point 
of the blade into the heart of the banana, another 
thought seemed to strike him: “0, uncle Leonard, 
I forgot! when I was passing the office, the clerk 
called me and gave me this letter for you.” 

Leonard took it with considerable surprise. He 
did not recognize the handwriting, and Mrs. La- 
throp watched him with a little curiosity as he 
broke the seal. She saw his face start into bewil- 
derment and wonder, at first, then the paper shook 
in his hands, and he grew white to his lips. The 
letter must have been brief, for in a moment he 
looked up with a strange, shocked look in his eyes, 
and his first words were those of a man who hardly 
knew what he was saying. “ Aunt Ellen, this brings 
strange news for us!” 

“What is it — quick — is it bad, Leonard?” 

“Lester Talcott is dead!” 

“0 Leonard!” and her face was white as his. 

“ He rode out three mornings ago ; his horse took 
sudden fright and threw him violently down a steep 
6 


82 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

precipice. He was taken up senseless, and terribly 
bruised, and survived only about twenty-four hours. 
He had, the letter says, full possession of his reason 
most of the time, and made his will, in which, the 
writer says, who was his lawyer, that I will hear 
somewhat to my advantage. The funeral transpires 
to-morrow, and in order to be at Cedar wild in time, 
I must take the next train for the South, which 
leaves in an hour.” 

“0, Leonard, this man, Lester Talcott, was not 
prepared to meet his God I” exclaimed Mrs. Lathrop, 
all other thoughts absorbed in this greatest one, 
and she burst into tears. 

“ Perhaps — we can not tell what those last hours, 
when he stood face to face with Death, did for our 
relative,” said Leonard Talcott, solemnly, as he laid 
back the sleeping face of Edna on its pillow, and 
kissed it; and an hour later he was on his way to 
Cedarwild, with tumultuous thoughts crowding fast 
upon him, as he remembered how he had last left 
it, and under what changed circumstances he was 
now returning. And then the thought that God 
was in all this calmed the heart of Leonard Talcott. 

He was the only mourner at the grand and deso- 
late funeral the next day; and with what feelings 
he looked upon the old rooms, and wandered over 
the old grounds, where nothing was changed, and 
which made the last four years seem like a dream 
that is gone when one awakeneth, Leonard Talcott 
could never tell, even his aunt; but at last the old 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 83 

memories crowded too thick and heavy, and the 
young man sat down in an old grape-arbor that 
used to be his favorite resort when a boy, and cried 
for an hour like a little child. 

After the funeral was over, a few of the friends 
and neighbors of the deceased assembled in the par- 
lor to listen to the reading of the will. Its tone 
showed that the last hours were the wisest and best 
of Lester Talcott’s life. 

There were a few legacies and annuities left to 
old friends and servants of the deceased, but the 
rest of his property, including Cedarwild, was all 
left to his nephew, Leonard Talcott; and the will 
closed with a solemn adjuration to the living pro- 
prietor to use this wealth, lost and regained, better 
than the dead one had done. 

It was touching to see the old domestics as they 
crowded with sobbing joy and congratulations about 
their former master. But in the midst of all the 
excitement and gladness Leonard Talcott was calm 
and grave, glad most certainly from the depths of 
his soul, and grateful to God; but those four years 
had wrought a great work in the soul of Leonard 
Talcott, and the new owner of Cedarwild would 
never be what he had been. 

The next day he took the train for Woodleaf. He 
reached the cottage, which would be their home no 
longer, and which began to grow real once more, 
just as the sun had crossed the great hill in the 
West. 


84 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


Mrs. Lathrop and the children were in the sitting- 
room when he entered it, and the golden curls of 
Edna were scattered over the lady’s lap like sun- 
beams spilled and lost out of the June noon. 

Leonard was pale. He kissed the three with a 
tender gravity, and with a look in his face which 
made Mrs. Lathrop wait for the words. They came 
in a moment. “Aunt Ellen, Cedarwild is restored 
to me; the child can go to the mountains!” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

“ The work is growing too heavy for me here. I 
need some change.” The speaker of these words 
looked out from her chamber window over a scene 
which travelers from afar came many miles over 
the rough country roads to behold. Right before 
her, only a few miles off, stood up the great, solemn 
mountains of Hew Hampshire in their eternal wor- 
ship. Between them and the speaker lay the wide 
meadows, and the green plush of their Summer 
grasses was changed now to the brown woolens of 
Autumn, for it was in the early September, and the 
frosts had touched them. 

And these mountains, standing alone in their 
grandeur, had never a more loving and reverent 
witness than this girl, looking out of her chamber 
window, as she had once looked out of the little red 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 85 

school-house at Woodleaf. Day by day for nearly 
two years had her soul gone up to them for worship. 
They had joined with her in worship, and praise, 
and prayer, and they had been strength, promise, 
and healing to her. She loved the mountains. 

But the time had come for a change. The fine, 
sweet, brave spirit panted and drooped for it. The 
monotonous country life, with its arduous school 
duties, had grown desolate and burdensome; and 
yet, looking on all sides, Edith Franklin did not 
know where to go for counsel or help. 

She dwelt among her father’s parishioners in the 
secluded old New Hampshire town; kind and honest 
people to the core — true friends to the daughter of 
the dead clergyman whom they held in such sacred 
and loving remembrance. But Edith needed what 
they could not give her, rest and refreshment; and 
yet, when she looked out into the dark and cold of 
the world she had braved three years before, a chill 
of dread and dismay struck through the soul of 
Edith Franklin. But this hard, daily toil in the 
large academy was more than she was equal to, even 
in that fine bracing air. Every week the young 
teacher felt her strength breaking down, her nerv- 
ous organization more susceptible, and the doctor 
said, “You are killing yourself; you want change; 
you must give up teaching.” 

She knew it better than he did; but whence was 
this change to come? For once the calm faces of 
the mountains could not answer her. If she should 


86 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

obtain a situation in some city seminary, although 
there was small prospect of success here, the care 
and the labor would be the same, and Edith Frank- 
lin was poor — she could not afford absolute rest. 

If I could only obtain a situation as governess in 
some quiet country family," she said to herself, with 
her fair, sweet face cut against the sky. “There 
are such opportunities for those more highly favored 
than I; but I have no father — no brother!" She 
paused here, and sighed. Ah, she was better off 
without her brother than with him ! And in that 
pause, the eyes of Edith Franklin caught a couple 
of small figures hurrying down the road, which 
branched off from the main one, nearly a mile 
distant. 

These small figures — a boy somewhere about his 
tenth year, and a girl a little younger — paused 
almost under the chamber window where Edith 
Franklin looked toward the mountains. 

“I’m tired, Paul, and we’ve lost our way," said 
the girl, in a weary, despondent sort of fashion, as 
she looked up in the boy’s face. “What will aunt 
Ellen and uncle Leonard say?" 

“0, come now, don’t give up so, Edna! If I 
could only find the main road, the way would be 
straight enough. I’ll stop at this farm-house and 
inquire." 

And he looked up at the pleasant old white 
house, and caught the face beaming out of the 
front window, and listening to his words. 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 87 

“I will come down and show you the way,” said 
the sweet, clear voice, which any child in loss, or 
need, or bewilderment, would have trusted. And 
taking her straw hat, for the evening was warm, 
the young teacher went down. 

The dark, bright beauty of the boy, the fair and 
singular loveliness of the girl, won strangely upon 
the heart of Edith Franklin. The road was an ir- 
regular one, leading through a little belt of forest 
and past the river before it intersected the turn- 
pike. 

“I will go with you,” said Edith, putting her 
face down to the little girl’s, and kissing it, 11 if you 
will like to keep me company so far.” 

“ Thank you,” answered Edna, with a shy, sweet 
grace, which was a part of her character. “We 
shall be very grateful to the lady, sha’n’t we, 
Paul?” 

And Paul answered, “Very grateful, indeed, 
ma’am.” 

And Edith took the little girl’s hand, and Paul 
took the other, so they went toward the turnpike. 
The children were both prattlers, and Edith learned 
that the little girl had recently recovered from a 
long illness, and that her uncle and aunt had come 
to the mountains for the sake of the bracing air 
which had brought back the lost bloom to the 
cheeks of Edna Irving. 

“They had had capital times,” Paul said; “he 
had been with his uncle, hunting, fishing, sailing, 


88 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


and climbing the mountains, every day; for they 
had rented an old country farm-house, and had 
brought Betty and a man servant with them. And 
now Edna was quite restored to health, and they 
were going home again — not to the pretty little 
cottage at Woodleaf, but to a great, new, beautiful 
home, where there were great lawns, and arbors, 
and a little lake to sail on, and charming avenues, 
where uncle Leonard and aunt Ellen used to live a 
long time ago, and which somehow they had got 
back again. Paul did n’t understand how, only 
uncle Leonard was a very rich man now, and would 
never teach any more.” 

“Woodleaf! Woodleaf!” said the young teacher, 
catching up the child at that familiar name. 

“0, yes, ma’am, and — 0, uncle Leonard!” — 

The boy broke off abruptly, and his sister joined 
in the shout, as a gentleman on horseback advanced 
toward them. 

In a moment he was at their side, and had 
sprung from his horse. He lifted the little girl 
tenderly in his arms. “Where have you been, 
children? Aunt Ellen is well-nigh distracted about 
you!” he exclaimed. 

“We lost our way, and this lady was going with 
us to the turnpike.” 

In his joy at recovering the lost children Leon- 
ard Talcott had hardly glanced at the lady. He 
turned now and lifted his hat to address and thank 
her; but he started with the first glance that met 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 89 

her face. And so did the young teacher, and into 
her cheeks, always too pale, the blood burned up 
quickly. 

“ Surely, ma’am, I have seen you before to-day ? 
I can not tell where.” 

Edith Franklin smiled a pleased, tremulous smile. 
“Do you remember the storm through which you 
once assisted a stranger, solitary and helpless?” she 
said. 

His face cleared into glad recognition in a mo- 
ment. “I remember it,” he said, giving the lady 
his hand. “But I did not suspect you would. repay 
me here and now, and in such measure as you then 
hoped my good angel would some time.” 

“I am tired, uncle Leonard, very tired,” lisped 
the soft voice of Edna Irving, and she leaned her 
golden head against her uncle. 

He lifted her and Paul on the horse, and then 
turned to the teacher. “Our home is only a half 
mile from here,” he said; “if you will permit me 
to accompany you there, my aunt will thank you in 
better and warmer words than I can.” 

The teacher smiled again — the sweet, winning, 
most womanly smile that made her fair face beau- 
tiful. “I am satisfied with yours, sir. Good- 
night.” 

She gave him her hand, and as Leonard Talcott 
clasped it, he silently covenanted with himself 
“that he would seek this lady’s name, and see her 
face again before he left Hew Hampshire;” and 


90 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


although he knew that Mrs. Lathrop was awaiting 
his return in almost frantic anxiety, he could not re- 
frain from turning back several times to watch the 
small, delicate figure, in its dress of purple lawn, as 
it moved down the road and lost itself in the belt 
of woods; and then Leonard Talcott sprang upon 
his horse, and spurred homeward with all his might, 
and a minute later Mrs. Lathrop rushed out of the 
gate to meet the trio on horseback. 

That evening, after the children were asleep, 
Leonard related to his aunt his singular meeting 
with Miss Franklin. 

“You remember, aunt Ellen, that the face of this 
girl or woman was to me, at least, like the face of 
no other woman I had ever seen.” 

“Yes, Leonard, I wondered at the time that it 
should have made so singularly powerful an im- 
pression upon you! How strange that you should 
come upon it again, here, in this secluded place!” 

“Strange enough! Aunt Ellen, you will go with 
me to-morrow to thank this lady, as I said you 
would, for bringing back our lost children?” 

“I will go, Leonard, partly for this reason and 
partly for another — perhaps a less noble one. I 
am very curious to see her.” 

It was late in the next afternoon when Leonard 
and his aunt presented themselves at the old farm- 
house, which had been Miss Franklin’s home for 
more than two years. She came into the large, 
low, old-fashioned parlor, with a little natural embar- 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


91 


rassment, and yet witli a bearing which any where 
you could not have mistaken — the bearing of an 
instinctive gentlewoman, which grand old word 
means somewhat more and better than that of lady, 
so meaningless and misapplied a term as the lat- 
ter is. 

Mrs. Lathrop was attracted toward the young 
school-teacher at once. The fine, sweet, pale face 
touched her. It seemed to need some warmth and 
color, just as this girl's life did, and yet it was a 
face that in any limitation or loneliness would con- 
front its duty steadily; would do it bravely, and 
would be light and graciousness in any lot of life. 

The talk of the ladies went on various topics 
which the Summer and the scenery about them was 
most likely to suggest; and through it all, and quite 
unconsciously to herself, there shone something of 
the true quality of the soul of Edith Eranklin. 

Leonard Talcott joined in the conversation some- 
times, but I think he loved best to listen and watch 
the face of the school-teacher, and learn it by heart. 
When, at last, Mrs. Lathrop rose to leave, she held 
Edith’s hand, and said to her in her sweet, most 
winning manner, “If there is any way in which I 
can be of help or service to you, my dear, will you 
not allow me the pleasure and happiness of hearing 
you name it now?” 

Edith Franklin paused a moment. Her face 
showed how keenly she appreciated Mrs. Lathrop’s 
delicate kindness. 


92 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


“It is just possible that there may be one way 
in which you could do me a great service,” she 
said. 

“Tell me, Miss Franklin.” 

“I should like to obtain a situation as governess 
in some quiet family with two or three children. 
My health is failing me here; my life needs change, 
but I can not afford rest without work, and I have 
no friends who can serve me in this matter. But it 
is possible you may hear of some opportunity, such 
as I have named, and then be so good as to re- 
member me.” 

Mrs. Lathrop’s eyes sought Leonard’s. She read 
in them the thought that was in her own mind. 

“Miss Franklin,” said the lady, “my nephew 
and I have decided within the last week to place 
our children under the care of a governess for this 
Winter. Our home at Cedarwild will, I think, be 
pleasant for you; the children are affectionate and 
teachable, and we are very quiet people.” Mrs. 
Lathrop smiled here. 

“Do you mean — do you mean” — asked Edith 
Franklin, and then something struggled into her 
throat. 

“I mean, do you think you would like to be 
with us this Winter?” 

The young school-teacher’s face answered for her; 
in a moment her lips did. So before Leonard and 
Mrs. Lathrop left, it was settled that Edith Frank- 
lin should join them in a month at Cedarwild. 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


93 


CHAPTER IX. 

“This is like the old times, Leonard,” said Guy 
Kenyon, as he turned his horse’s rein toward the 
broad avenue which led in a serpentine course up 
to the front steps of Cedarwild. 

Leonard Talcott spurred his horse up to his 
friend's side: “Yes, Guy, so much like them that 
I am often half-tempted to believe the past four 
years are only a trick of my imagination, and the 
old days and the new stand close together, without 
that long bridge which, after all, lies betwixt the 
‘then’ and the ‘now.’” 

“I can comprehend the feeling, and yet” — Guy 
Kenyon paused here suddenly, like a man who 
stops to consider and take counsel of his thoughts 
before he utters them in words. 

“ Go on, Guy,” said his friend, patting the arched 
neck of the beautiful animal which he rode. 

The young man turned his face' full upon his 
host: “There is no change in Cedarwild, but there 
is in you, 0 my oldest friend and dearest!” 

The face of Leonard Talcott struggled a moment, 
then it settled into calm, and a bright, grave smile, 
which one who loved him would never forget. “You 
are right there, Guy; and if I am ever tempted to 
believe the past four years are not, I remember 


94 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

what I was then, I feel what I am now, and the 
years assert themselves ; they live in me, and, thank 
God, they will never die!” 

“ Then,” said Guy, softly, “hard as the experi- 
ence was, it has wrought something for you?” 

“Something? Every thing! You know what I 
was, to what my life was inevitably drifting; indo- 
lence, self-indulgence, want of all high aim and en- 
nobling purpose in life, a life that was seeking its 
happiness in merely aesthetic directions, was ruining 
me. And now I sometimes go up stairs to that old 
secretary, that once seemed to have cut down every 
hope and promise of my future, and made it as 
barren and desolate a thing as that blasted old tree 
we saw the workmen cutting down this morning; 
and I make low reverence to the grim old piece of 
furniture, and I say to it, 1 You ’ve kept your secret 
well, and you 've been, under God, my best friend. 
You ’ve made a man of me!’ ” 

“ Bravo, old fellow !” answered Guy, and he 
reached over, took his friend’s hand, and wrung 
it in a way which, with him, said more than his 
lips could ever have done. “Do you remember, 
Leonard, the talk we had together that last even- 
ing I was at Cedarwild?” 

“Bemember it, Guy? How vividly it all used 
to come back to me in the months that followed!” 

“And how little we either of us suspected that 
the crisis of the trial was so close at hand ! There 
must have been an hour of terrible temptation for 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 95 

you when you first discovered the existence of that 
will!” 

“Terrible, Guy; and the temptation had almost 
got the mastery of me. I thank God — I give the 
glory to him who delivered me in that hour from 
the evil!” 

And Leonard Talcott took off his hat and bent 
his head reverently, and so did his companion. 

Then the latter spoke, with a little smile that 
faded into seriousness in a moment : “I find the 
present owner of Cedarwild a little graver, a great 
deal wiser and better man than he was. Is he less 
a happy one?” 

Leonard's answer came quick and decided: “0, 
no. Is a man ever the less happy for having learned 
the joy there is in self-sacrifice, in working and de- 
nying one's self for others?” 

At that moment there was an opening in the 
trees a few rods from the door. The gentlemen 
reined up their horses, and looked at the lady who 
came out upon the veranda and stood still, leaning 
against one of the pillars, her face standing out, 
sweet and fair, from the dark green vines which, 
although it was October, the frost had not yet 
touched. 

She was dressed in a simple lawn, relieved only 
by some blue ribbon, which fastened a dainty ruf- 
fling at her neck. 

What a picture she made, of something most 
sweet, and delicate, and womanly, the lady could 


96 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

in no wise suspect as she stood there, with her 
large azure eyes, beholding the beauty of the day. 
A wonderful day it was, too ; its golden ripeness 
set in the heart of October. The winds seemed 
to hold the musk of the distant forest; the soft, 
tender sunshine spilled its glowing tides every- 
where; the earth smiled back serene and reconciled 
to the brooding, peaceful sky; and this girl, stand- 
ing on the veranda, smiled too, not so much with 
her lips as with . the happiness in her whole face, 
the fair, delicate, womanly face of Edith Franklin. 

Guy turned to his friend: “The lady is your 
children's governess, I believe.” 

“Yes; what do you think of her there and now?” 

“It is a fine, rare face — not handsome; I think 
few men would call it beautiful; and yet there is 
some singular charm and attraction about it. I 
think it is a face that will wear well, that will bear 
study. Where did you find her?” 

“Among the mountains of New Hampshire. She 
has been with us but a week, and is, I think, shy 
about meeting strangers — the natural result of a 
life so introverted and secluded as hers has been. 
That is the reason that you 've met her only once 
since you reached here yesterday noon.” 

“There is no subtile resemblance betwixt the 
physiognomy of their native mountains and that 
face and figure. There 's no ruggedness about the 
latter,” said the guest of Leonard Talcott, with his 
eyes on the lady. 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 97 

“ Not the least ; and there ’s no want of bright- 
ness and health there, I think.” 

At that moment Paul and Edna Irving burst, 
with their young, joyous voices and their merry 
laughter, out on the veranda. 

It was quite evident that the young governess 
had managed to secure the confidence and affection 
of her young charges during the week that they 
had been under her care. 

They rushed toward her, and asked, in their 
bright, confident way, “ 0, what are you doing, Miss 
Edith?” 

She bent toward them, the gladness of her face 
concentrating now in a warm, bright smile on her 
lips: “ Pretty children, I am beholding the beauty 
of this day!” 

“ Every thing is beautiful here, I think,” said 
Paul. “Don’t you, Miss Edith?” 

“I think so.” 

“The most beautiful in the world!” slipped in the 
soft voice of Edna. 

“It seems so to me, dear child!” said the gov- 
erness, speaking mostly to herself as she caressed 
the child’s golden curls. 

“And we are always to live in this beautiful 
place — here at Cedarwild; uncle Leonard says so,” 
said Paul, in his prompt, asseverating fashion. 

“And you will live here, too; won’t you, Miss 
Edith?” subjoined Edna, slipping her little dimpled 
hand into her teacher’s. 


7 


98 


TEMPTATION AND TKIUMPH. 


“I don’t know how that will be ; dear,” said Miss 
Franklin, a little seriously; “I hope I shall stay 
till you and Paul here have grown too large to 
need me any more.” 

“That will be a long, long time,” answered Paul, 
decidedly. “0, Miss Edith, I want you to come and 
see the three deer in the back lawn, and the white 
stag; Edna and I have been feeding them, and they 
are just as tame, and rubbed their noses into our 
hands, and looked at us with their great, beautiful 
eyes.” 

“I’m afraid there will hardly be time before 
dinner,” answered Miss Franklin, a little irreso- 
lutely. 

“0, yes there will! Uncle Leonard and his friend 
haven’t returned yet — do come;” and, half against 
her will, the children persuaded their young gov- 
erness away. 

“Leonard, old fellow, there’s one thing more you 
need to complete Cedarwild,” said Guy Kenyon, as 
the gentlemen reined up their horses before the 
front door. 

“What is it, Guy?” — springing from his horse. 

“You will want a wife, Leonard, one of these 
days, to share with you this beautiful home — to 
ennoble and enlarge you with her tender sympa- 
thies, with her keen, pure, most womanly mind, 
with her warm, loving heart. You can not con- 
ceive, 0 my friend, what new blessing and happi- 
ness such a woman will be to you — what her sweet 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


99 


influence will be about your life ! If I speak warmly 
here, it is because I bave such a wife now, and re- 
member the time that I had not.” 

Leonard smiled, half gravely, half merrily. “I 
have all the other good gifts,” he said; “I trust 
God will send me this in his own good time.” 

“And for the present, happiness and peace to 
the future mistress of Cedar wild!” laughed Guy 
Kenyon, as he too sprang from his horse and hur- 
ried away to his room. 

Leonard Talcott hurried to his also, but the 
words of his guest abode in his heart, and with 
them abode also the face of the young governess, as 
he had seen it standing still, shaded by the vines 
under the veranda. 


CHAPTER X. 

“The wild, white bees of Winter!” said to her- 
self Edith Franklin, as she stood by the window in 
the library at Cedarwild, one day in the early De- 
cember, and looked out on the first fall of the snow, 
and saw the great swift flakes drifting down and 
building over the earth its white sepulcher. 

Miss Franklin had come thither for a volume, 
and thither also, quite unconscious of its occupant, 
came Leonard Talcott, in search of another. 

He caught the lady’s words, as he opened the 


100 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

softly* sliding door. “Are you fond of the snow?" 
he asked, close at her side. This was the first in- 
timation she had of his presence; and she started 
back, but was too well-bred not to regain her com- 
posure in a moment. 

“Yes," she said; “there was a time when snow 
had no beauty, only blankness and chill for me; but 
I have come to find grace and meaning in it now, 
as I begin to think we may in all God’s works, if 
we look at them with the right eyes — I mean 
with eyes out of which a reverent, loving heart 
looks." 

And looking in her eyes, Leonard thought there 
was all this there just then, and somewhat more. 

“Miss Franklin," he said, half to himself and 
half to his hearer, “how differently all things look 
to us in this life, and how much fairer, when we 
bring to them the right kind of eyes — I mean the 
eyes of little children, seeing every- where the works 
of our Father who is in heaven !" 

She looked up now with a smile, almost radiant 
in its sweetness, and yet touched with a certain 
seriousness: “Yes; and yet how long it takes to 
learn the real meaning and spirit of that loving 
command, ‘As little children.’” 

He went on: “‘As little children,' in simplicity 
and single-heartedness, in all truth and guilelessness. 
What a terrible contrast to the conventionalities, 
the affectations, the hollowness, the false-hearted- 
ness of the world, of our actual lives, with their 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 101 

petty aims and ambitions, where we are all striving 
to seem what we are not, while the great work of 
life is to be and to do what we ought!” 

“0 dear!” sighed the lady softly, and partly to 
herself, “how very hard that is!” 

“ You find it so?” asked Leonard Talcott. 

“Find it so?” and she looked up at him, her 
sweet face full of sorrow and self-reproach — “when 
my life is a constant struggle with’ my own weak- 
ness, my own selfishness; when I am baffled and 
defeated on all sides, and so often sit down despond- 
ent and disheartened, amazed at myself, at my 
utter unworthiness!” 

“It is the history of the growth of all souls. 
You know what Carlyle says of David: 1 Having 
fallen, he was not content to lie there.’ ” 

“Yes,” she said, softly; “and a greater than 
Carlyle has said, 1 Faithful is He that calleth you; 
Who also will do it.’ ” 

He smiled now — a smile that broke up into light 
the gravity of his face, and yet retained its solem- 
nity. “The strength and the courage sufficient lie 
there. What would life be worth without it?” 

“Hot worth living,” she said, half sadly, half 
cheerily ; such talk always having two sides. 

He looked at her. Never before in all his wide 
knowledge of women had he found one with whom 
he could talk in this wise ! In the very quick and 
essence of their lives there was somewhat which 
answered to the other. 


102 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

“Miss Franklin,” said Leonard Talcott, low and 
reverent now, “ there is one great, supreme, central 
purpose for which we are living; after which, 
through all defeat, and loss, and weakness, we are 
yet struggling — struggling to he Christians. Let 
us shake hands together.” 

She looked up in some surprise; but she was of 
the quality of woman to take such a request calmly, 
to comprehend its spirit; and she laid her hand, 
the thin, soft, flexible hand in his, her face dropping 
downward while she spoke. 

And as he took it, and clasped the hand so soft 
and warm, a new thrill of exceeding tenderness shot 
down, down into the very heart of Leonard Talcott, 
a yearning and longing to crush up that small hand 
in his grasp and cover it with kisses; but as he 
looked at that fair, drooping profile some other feel- 
ing of doubt or reverence held him back. 

Just at that moment the sound of small, swift 
feet hurried along the hall, and in the next breath 
Paul and Edna broke into the library. 

The children started with surprise to see their 
uncle and Miss Franklin sitting together. They 
were quite too young and transparent for any dis- 
guises of word or look. 

“My little children,” exclaimed Leonard, a little 
archly, “you look surprised. What is the matter?” 

“Nothing,” said Edna, recovering herself, and 
rushing toward her uncle; “only I didn’t know as 
Miss Edith was here.” 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 103 

“But she came for one book and I for another; 
and so we met here.” 

“And so you stayed and talked, didn’t you?” 
persisted Edna. 

“Yes, dear;” and Leonard laughed, and so did 
Edith Franklin, in a way which showed she enjoyed 
the whole, although the blushes were wide in her 
cheeks all the while. 

“What did you talk about, uncle?” inquired 
Paul, in his sturdy, practical way. 

“0, about some very gjood and wise things which 
you would hardly understand. Now it is my turn 
to catechise: what brought you romping in here 
after this fashion?” 

This question at once absorbed all minor subjects. 
“We came to ask you,” said both of the children, 
speaking at once, “ if we could n’t have a sleigh-ride 
before night? Aunt Ellen says the snow is deep 
enough.” 

Leonard walked to the .window and looked out, 
humming a tune to himself. The snow was hardly 
three inches deep; but it had fallen on ground ready 
for it, and lay in a smooth sheet, without fold or 
plait, over the level earth. Overhead there was a 
rent in the clouds. 

“Yes; I think there is snow enough to warrant 
John’s getting out the sleigh. Ladies, shall I pack 
you away in it?” for now Mrs. Lathrop had come 
into the library. 

“We shall have a great deal more fun if you and 


104 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

Miss Edith go,” said Edna, looking at her aunt 
beseechingly. 

“Well, then, Miss Edith, shall we help the fun?” 
smiled Mrs. Lathrop. 

“I’m ready to do my part,” answered Edith, old 
home memories awakening in her at the prospect 
of a sleigh-ride. 

“Well, get your things on within twenty min- 
utes,” said Leonard; and he went off toward the 
stables. 

And Edith Eranklin hurried away to her own 
room, and sat down there and looked on the hand 
which Leonard had taken a few moments before; 
the small, slender hand, with an old-fashioned gold 
ring — her mother’s wedding one — on the third 
finger. Some confused feeling in her heart, partly 
of pain, partly of pleasure, came and went in her 
face, but did not make itself intelligible there. At 
last she rose up with a deep-drawn sigh. “My 
work is set plain before me; I must put my heart 
and my soul in that service,” she said to herself, 
getting up. 

Were these words an unconscious admission that 
there was danger of putting her heart and soul 
somewhere else? 

And thus there was, at times, a little constraint 
or contradiction in the conduct of Edith Franklin. 
The simple, natural character was not changed; the 
sweet, bright, impulsive nature disclosed itself every 
day in a thousand ways; but still, in the presence 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 105 

of Leonard Talcott especially, and frequently when 
with Mrs. Lathrop, there was in the conduct and 
speech of the young governess some slight con- 
straint, or shyness, as though she had imposed some 
law on herself. But her face was cheerful, serene, 
happy. She did her work as she had commanded 
herself, faithfully. The children were devoted to 
her, and Mrs. Lathrop could hardly have evinced 
more tender solicitude for the happiness of her own 
daughter. 

Leonard Talcott and the young governess were, 
of course, thrown much together in their daily in- 
tercourse; still, they never came quite so close 
together in any- talk as they had that day in the 
library. Perhaps Leonard felt the slight constraint 
in Edith’s manner, and it may have affected his; 
not its kindness and courtesy toward her, most cer- 
tainly, but its freedom. 

Then, through the Winter there was much com- 
pany at Cedar wild. Old friends of Leonard’s and 
his father’s — men and women, young and old — 
hocked to Cedarwild, to see its heir, and congratu- 
late him on his restored fortune; and Leonard Tal- 
cott was the same generous, hospitable host as of 
old; and yet, all his guests felt and knew that the 
man somehow was changed. 


106 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


CHAPTEB XI. 

The Spring had come at last. Many days had 
3he been watched for by eyes grown weary of the 
Winter. 

But at last she had come and triumphed. There 
was the sweet smell of sprouting grasses in the air, 
the sweet singing of birds abroad in the earth; 
and one afternoon in the mid-May Paul and Edna 
rambled off on the hill-side, and brought home 
what they had heard their governess say the day 
before her eyes and her heart were athirst for — a 
little cluster of wild violets. 

They brought them to her in a small Sevres 
china vase, as she sat alone, reading in the sun- 
shine, which spilled itself through the bay window 
of the alcove that opened out of the sitting-room. 

A long, low, greedy cry broke from her as her 
eyes fell on the flowers. She bent over them and 
inhaled their sweet, spicy breath, with old memories 
of home, and of her far-off childhood, leaping out 
of a thousand silent corners of her heart. 

“0 my darlings, my darlings!” she said; “you 
are not changed any more than the mountains are 
where I used to gather you — the mountains of 
home.” 

At that moment Mrs. Lathrop was heard sum- 
moning the children to her room on some errand, 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 107 

and they went somewhat unwillingly, while Leon- 
ard Talcott, who, unobserved, had stood at the open 
window, vaulted into it. 

Edith looked up; the tears stood in her eyes — 
they were in her voice too, a moment before, when 
she spoke that word home! 

The voice, the eyes stirred the soul of Leonard 
Talcott as it had been stirred that day in the 
librarv, as very often, all unconsciously to Edith 
Franklin, it had been stirred many times during 
those Winter days by her sweet and gracious pres- 
ence, which had diffused its fine fragrance about 
his life, and made him a gladder, stronger man, as 
a true woman does the man who loves her. 

Leonard Talcott laid his hand on the shoulder of 
the young governess. 

“Miss Edith,” he said, “have you found so little 
a home with us that those tears are in your eyes 
for your lost one?” 

“No, it is not that, Mr. Talcott,” said she, with 
the tears thickening in her eyes, “but the sight 
and smell of these violets have somehow brought 
back my lost childhood to me; and the dear, old 
Spring days when I used to go' searching for them 
on the sunny slopes of the hills to carry home to 
my father — my father who loved them only less 
than he loved me.” 

Her voice choked here. For months there had 
been some new pain and hunger in her heart for 
human affection; and silently, as a woman must, 


108 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 


and prayerfully, as a woman should, had Edith 
Franklin striven to live and to work down this 
pain; but now it was in her voice, in her face. 

Leonard Talcott’s hand still lay on her shoulder; 
and over it his heart throbbed with a strength and 
tenderness that he felt now must force out in a mo- 
ment some words to his lips ; he did not know what 
ones; but they would be of a nature that, once 
spoken, could never be recalled. 

When the words came, hurried up from his heart 
to his lips, and low and tremulous because of the 
feeling which freighted every syllable, they were, 
“ Edith, you have said those words of the dead; 
they are true of the living/' 

She looked up, only dimly guessing at his mean- 
ing even with his voice and eyes to aid the speech. 
She was not a vain woman, not given to building 
air-castles, and had, in some sense, outgrown the 
romance of her girlhood; else the attentions and 
the manner of Leonard Talcott might have awak- 
ened suspicions which had never dwelt in her 
thoughts. “ What do you mean, Mr. Talcott?” 
she faltered. 

“I mean, Edith, that of one living, as of one 
dead, it may be said, 'He loves the violets only 
less than he loves you!’” 

There was no mistaking his meaning now. She 
was above any arts or affectations; but the surprise 
was so sudden, so great, that she could not have 
told whether it gave her pleasure or pain. She 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 109 

knew that this man, Leonard Talcott, would not 
say more than he meant. She had no thought of 
doubting him, but it came to her like a great 
shock. She buried her face in her hands till the 
great wave of emotion should go over her. 

Then she looked up — up in his face, like a child 
half-bewildered; and her words were much like a 
child's too. 

“It can not be; I can not have heard aright; 
you so great, so good, so far above me — you who 
would do honor to the fairest and noblest woman in 
the land by your choice ! And what am I ?" 

He bent down to her and whispered, “The one 
woman in all the world whom my soul loveth!” 

He felt her shake in every limb again. Her 
head drooped. “I am so unworthy, so little fitted 
for all this. What will the world think ? what will 
the world say-?" 

“Edith, that is the only foolish speech I ever 
heard from your lips," said Leonard Talcott. 

This time, when she looked up, scarlet blushes 
had superseded the pallor in her cheeks: “Eor 
what do you love me?" The question, in its sim- 
plicity, was like her. 

“Because,” he said, solemn and reverently, “my 
heart finds in you what it needs; because you live 
for the same purpose and with the same hope that 
I do, and because you, Edith Franklin, will, by 
your gentleness and sweetness, by your faith and 
service, by your daily living, reveal to me more 


110 TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. 

and more of the beauty and glory of that religion 
I have come to love. For this, and for many other 
reasons, do I want you. My manhood will grow 
stronger and better for your womanhood taken into 
my life. , 0 Edith, is there no answer in your 
heart? Can we not strive together to grow fitter 
for heaven? Can you not love me?” 

She looked up with her smile shining through its 
tears like lights through the rain. “ 1 believe I 
have been trying not to for a long while,” answered 
Edith Franklin. 

And so Leonard Talcott had his answer. 

A little afterward he said to her, “Come with 
me, Edith;” and he drew her arm in his and held 
it there tightly, and led her out into the hall. She 
supposed he was about to take her to Mrs. Lathrop, 
and her loud-beating heart made her almost faint 
as she heard the soft voice of the lady and the 
laughter of the children in one of the parlors. 

But Leonard Talcott led her past the door, and 
up the stairs into a chamber which she had never 
entered, in one corner of which stood the old sec- 
retary, huge and grim as ever. 

And standing there, Leonard Talcott told her, 
his newly-betrothed wife, all which had transpired 
in that very room a few years ago. 

Somewhat of this Edith had heard, somewhat had 
suspected; but now, listening to the story from the 
lips of him who had been so sorely tempted, she 
seemed to live the whole over again. Sobs shook 


TEMPTATION AND TRIUMPH. Ill 

her from head to feet; but when he stopped, with 
the victory which succeeded the long struggle, she 
drew one long sigh. “ Thank God!” she said fer- 
vently. 

“Yes, Edith, I do so daily for the temptation he 
sent me in that old secretary, and the triumph he 
gave me there. Had it not been for this, I should 
never have been the man, never the Christian, 
which I humbly hope I am now.” 

And in a moment she drew a little closer toward 
him, and looked up with her rare, sweet smile full 
of new tenderness: “And you would otherwise 
never have come to Woodleaf, and never have 
found me?” 

“Ho. I owe the old secretary this new, last, 
best gift of all,” kissing the tremulous lips. 

“Come, Edith, I want to introduce to my aunt 
her new niece, to the children their new aunt. 
How delighted they all will be!” 

And they went out from the chamber together, 
and the blessing went with them. 












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THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 


“Have you been over the bouse, Miss Mar- 
garet?” inquired Mrs. Stebbins, a little, pleasant- 
faced, vivacious woman, as she stopped a moment 
in the sitting-room to adjust her shawl and receive 
the blue china bowl which she had brought over 
filled with jelly for Mrs. Phillips, who was an 
invalid. 

The mound of jelly stood on the table, on a small 
cut-glass dish of an antique pattern, and as the 
sunlight poured its golden rain upon the “quaking 
tumulus,” it looked like an immense ruby. 

“No, Mrs. Stebbins; I haven’t seen the house 
at all.” The tones were sweet and distinct that 
answered. Hearing them you would not need to 
see Margaret Phillips to know that she was a lady, 
so far as cultivation of mind and graciousness of 
manner make one this. 

“0, you do n’t know what you ’ve missed!” added 
Mrs. Stebbins, in her good-natured, sympathetic 
way. “It’s a perfect palace. John says it’s built 
after the style of some foreign nobleman’s. There’s 
no end to the money that it cost. I can’t attempt 


114 THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 

to describe it ; but there ’s the library openin' on 
the lawn, all of oak; and the parlors, with the 
green and gold; and the dinin’-room — well, there’s 
no tellin’. But I told John, after I got home, that 
my house did n’t look bigger nor better ’n a shanty. 
But it ’s some folks’ luck to be born with silver 
spoons in their mouths.” 

“And some have the faculty of keeping the silver 
spoons — and some don’t seem to.” This general 
statement had a particular application in Margaret’s 
mind, and this was the reason that there was a lit- 
tle touch of bitterness or pain in her voice, which, 
however, only a very keen observer would have 
detected. 

“That 's a fact.” Mrs. Stebbins was of the ac- 
quiescent, approbative type. “But” — slipping at 
once from general theories to specific facts — -“it ’s 
too late now to see the inside of the house, for the 
family are expected next week, and they ’ve got a 
train of servants puttin’ things to rights.” 

“ If it were otherwise, I have n’t the time to get 
over there,” answered Margaret, with a lack of en- 
thusiasm which even Mrs. Stebbins must have per- 
ceived. “You are very kind, Mrs. Stebbins, to 
remember mother so often. I wish you knew how 
she will enjoy your jelly !” 

“La! don't speak of that. I thought it might 
set well with an egg, or some chicken broth. My 
grandmother Parsons used to say, and she was a 
reg’lar hand at nussin’, that there was every thing 


THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 115 

in knowin’ how to coax along a weak stomach; it 
did more than the doctor a good many times.” 

“I have no doubt of it, Mrs. Stebbins; and I 
really believe the nice little dainties you ’ve sent 
mother for the last month have done more for her 
than all her medicine has.” 

The little womans faded face flushed with genuine 
pleasure. “I don’t feel as though I’d done any 
thing at all, Miss Margaret; only jest to show that 
I ’d got the will.” 

“I do — so much, Mrs. Stebbins, that I’m em- 
boldened now to ask you to do something for me. 
Isn’t your husband on the school committee this 
year ?” 

“Yes. He tried to get out of it, but they would 
put him in.” 

“If he has no other teacher engaged, I shall be 
very glad to obtain the situation this year.” 

“Miss Margaret /” Mrs. Stebbins had arisen from 
her chair, but she sat down again, and there was no 
need she should express her astonishment at the 
young lady’s proposition; her tones had done this 
more effectually than any words could. 

“You are surprised?” said Margaret Phillips, 
looking her neighbor in the face with a brave smile, 
and one that had yet a little flickering pain in it. 

“Well, yes; I am quite taken aback,” faltered 
the small, dark woman. 

“Of course, Mrs. Stebbins, this step is not, under 
existing circumstances, a matter of choice, but one 


116 THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 

of necessity. We are poor people now, mamma and 
I, whatever we were once; and I must look tl\e 
matter boldly in the face, as I have done many' 
other things, and it will be a great relief to my 
present necessity if I can obtain the situation of 
which I have spoken.” 

“I’ll speak to John this very day,” answered 
Mrs. Stebbins. “But how in the world can you 
take so much on yourself, with the care of your 
sick mother?” 

“Mrs. Stebbins,” answered* Margaret Phillips, 
with a solemn faith on her fair young face, “God 
has given me strength to bear many burdens that I 
did not once think I could carry. I do not believe 
he will fail me in this one.” 

Mrs. Stebbins made no further protest. That 
look of Margaret’s silenced her; still, the manner in 
which she took the girl’s hand, and pressed it as 
they parted, showed that she was both appreciative 
and sympathetic. 

Margaret Phillips went up stairs to her own 
room, and sat down by the window, and somehow 
her gaze turned to the eastward, where, about 
three-quarters of a mile off, a couple of gray stone 
turrets showed picturesquely through the thick 
foliage. Somehow the sight did not seem to attract 
Margaret Phillips. The shadow of pain which had 
hovered over her face seemed to settle deeper there. 
Yet it was a morning in the late May, full of praise 
and beauty. The white, fleecy mists hung wide on 


THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 117 

the distant mountains, the air was perfumed with 
all sweet smells of young grass and blossoming fruit- 
trees, the birds brimmed the morning with songs, 
-and through the branches filtered like golden wine 
the sunshine of the Spring. Every thing was glad, 
every thing but Margaret Phillips. Yet I would 
not have you suppose for one moment that she was 
a morbid or sentimental character, that she could 
not arise out of her own private limitations and 
losses and be courageous and of “good cheer,” 
knowing that whatsoever burdens and sorrows were 
appointed her here, she still had the one love to 
give thanks for, to rejoice in, and that, sooner or 
later, if she trusted it, all sorrow and pain should 
be lost in the rest and the joy which God promises 
to those who love him. And this Margaret Phil- 
lips believed, not in occasional bursts of enthusiasm 
or exalted sentiment, but in her daily living, in 
struggle and weakness, amid diligent work and 
petty cares, and sometimes amid bitter struggles. 

A very few words will give you a few necessary 
glimpses into her past life. Her father had been 
a rich man, honorable to the core in his dealings 
with all men, and respected and beloved wherever 
he was known. 

But, during the latter part of his life, he had 
been induced, through the influence of his partner, 
to embark in some foreign speculations which had 
proved totally ruinous through the weakness and 
dishonesty of various parties. A fever, the conse- 


118 THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 

quence of exposure and anxiety, closed las life before 
be reached his fiftieth year. Margaret was the only 
and dearly-beloved child of her parents. Her youth 
had been sheltered by watchful tenderness from 
every sorrow. Her mother, a woman of a gentle, 
sensitive nature, had been an invalid for years; and 
the young girl found herself suddenly face to face 
with a world of which she had known nothing ex- 
cept the bright side. 

Then the soul of Margaret Phillips awoke within 
her. She set herself diligently and bravely to meet 
these altered circumstances as soon as the first shock 
of grief for her father's death was over. The old, 
luxurious home was given up, the furniture sold, 
and, through the influence of friends, Margaret en- 
tered a small, pleasant cottage in Woburn; for both 
mother and daughter shrank from the thought of 
life in the city, where the old, harrowing associa- 
tions would be constantly revived. And for the 
next two years Margaret devoted herself to her 
mother’s comfort, and the supervision of their small 
household; for they kept but one domestic. 

Mrs. Phillips rallied a good deal in the fine 
country air during the first year of her residence in 
Woburn ; but the second, her health sank again in 
consequence of a severe cold she took in some ex- 
posure during the late Autumn; and Margaret 
Phillips was kept in fluctuations of hope and fear 
for her mother’s life during the whole Winter. 

With the return of the Spring, Mrs. Phillips 


THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 119 

began slowly to recuperate; but now another dread 
haunted the mother and daughter by night and by 
day — their slender means were nearly exhausted, 
and afar off they saw the “wolf” approaching their 
door. 

Margaret was not a girl to sit down and fold her 
hands in weak, unavailing tears and lamentations at 
this crisis. Not but the anxiety, and doubt, and 
ultimate decision, cost her much pain and many 
sleepless hours. But she reached it at last. 

And, not to prolong this subject, the next week 
Mr. Stebbins called on Margaret, had a long inter- 
view with the young lady, which resulted in another 
visit, several evenings later, when Mr. Stebbins was 
accompanied by two other members of the commit- 
tee, and after an examination, which was merely 
nominal, she was installed teacher of the district 
school for that Summer. 

It was a little, low, long, red building with white 
shutters, on the side of the road where there were 
no trees, and the sun poured down with a sickening 
glare during the heats of the Summer, and within 
it were gathered more than forty boys and girls — 
many of them coarse, unruly, ill-bred. 

It was hard work for Margaret — hard for mind 
and body; yet she set herself to do it, and sum- 
moned all her moral forces to the work, and did it 
well , as any work that is worth doing at all ought 
to be done. 

Yet I think any one with fine intentions and gen- 


120 THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 

-,rous sympathies would have looked sad, could they 
have glanced into the little, bare, red school-house 
that Summer, and seen the gentle, delicate, sweet- 
faced young teacher in her high chair, behind her 
brown desk, surrounded by those half-grown boys 
and girls, many of them so bent on the promotion 
of mischief, and petty annoyance, and disturbances, 
that in order to control them it was necessary to 
keep her thoughts and observation strained to their 
utmost tension. 

She looked too fair and fragile amid those rude 
boys and girls, and seemed more out of place than 
she actually was, for Margaret had in her nature 
some moral force which commanded respect, and to 
a large degree obedience. And she had various soils 
in which to sow her seed, and some of it took root 
there, and gave promise of a stronger, better man- 
hood, a sweeter and more gracious womanhood. 

The school-house was situated less than a quarter 
of a mile from the new stone house, which was the 
pride and wonder of all Woburn, and as Margaret 
went up every morning through the green country 
lane to her school, the gray turrets of the stately 
house looked afar through the green trees upon 
her, with the sunlight touching them into a new 
splendor. 

Somehow the sight of those turrets always hurt 
Margaret. If you had watched her narrowly, and 
seen the sweet light widening up into her dark 
eyes, and about her lips, as she listened to the 


THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 121 

oirds filling tlie air with their sprays of song, or 
looked off where, through the dark plush of meadow 
grass, the Summer winds went searching to and fro, 
you would have witnessed a sudden shadow sweep 
over her face as the gray turrets rose in sight, a 
shadow that blurred all the brightness, and was 
almost like pain. 

That stone house was Margaret’s vulnerable point 
all Summer. She was no faultless heroine — this 
lady of whom I write — dear reader. She would 
have opened her brown eyes wide at the thought of 
being one; but she was a woman, young, brave, 
lovely, struggling with herself, and all the hard 
realities of her lot — struggling for faith, duty, 
charity — sometimes defeated, sometimes victorious. 
And this thought of the “ great stone house” was 
the thorn in Margaret’s side; she tried to put it 
away, but it came back and haunted her day by 
day. She thought of it in the hot, weary noon as 
she sat drooping before her desk in the hour of in- 
termission; the large, cool, luxurious rooms would 
rise and shine before her; she would see the soft, 
mossy carpets sprinkled with leaves and blossoms; 
she would see rare pictures and statuary scattered 
along the walls, and gleaming white in the corners, 
feeding with beauty the eyes which beheld and re- 
joiced in them; she would hear the sudden rush, 
and the sweet thrill and quiver of music that drew 
the quick tears to her eyes; and then she would see 
the lofty balconies where the June roses and honey- 


122 THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 

suckles made heats of bloom about the pillars, and 
where, in the cool moonlight of the Summer even- 
ings, they told her the guests wandered up and 
down; and then jets of laughter would suddenly 
thrill the air; and stately gentlemen and fair ladies 
would roam up and down the beautiful grounds, 
where the fountains threw up their white em- 
broidery of waters, or where the deep, green shrub- 
beries made darkness and stillness ; or by the lake, 
where the stately swans went dreaming up and 
down, and the water-lilies, like great, white pearls, 
were scattered lavish on its bosom. 

Margaret knew nothing of the inmates of the 
“ stone house/' except that they were people of im- 
mense fortune, and, as their home indicated, of rare 
taste. She had gathered, too, from the various gos- 
sip of the villagers, that the family was not large — 
a couple of sons and daughters. They had traveled 
for several years in foreign lands; and the girl fan- 
cied, without knowing, that they were haughty, 
purse-proud people. 

The only possible opportunity she could have had 
of meeting the family was at the village church, 
which they occasionally attended; but as they most 
frequently drove to service in the city, ten miles 
distant, it did not happen that Margaret met any 
of the residents of the stone house. But in her 
hours of weakness and weariness the young teacher 
thought of these people, dwelling in luxury, sur- 
rounded by all which could make the outward life 


THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 123 

beautiful and happy, and lier heart rebelled against 
her own hard, toiling, uncongenial lot. 

And so it happened one day, after the heats of 
the Summer had passed, and the earth was still 
and serene, and the ripeness of September flooded 
the year’s pulses with wine, that Margaret Phillips 
sat at her chamber window just as she had sat in 
the brave life and gladness of the June which 
would never come back any more. It was one 
evening after school, and, weary with her day’s 
work, she had tossed aside her bonnet and shawl, 
and sat down at the window to refresh herself with 
the cool air, which was spiced with sweet fern, and 
sassafras, and pine from the woods on her right 
hand. The young teacher looked out, and drank in 
the sweet refreshment of air, and earth, and. sky, 
with a face that grew peaceful as she gazed, till 
suddenly her roaming gaze fell upon the gray tur- 
rets of the stone house betwixt the trees. 

Margaret closed her eyes. “I believe that house 
is the Mordecai in the gate of my life,” she said to 
herself in a tone made up of annoyance and self- 
reproach. “It haunts me every-where, and spoils 
all my landscapes. I heartily wish it could burn 
to the ground.” 

“Margaret! Margaret!” whispered softly the con- 
science of the girl; and, heeding the admonition, 
she sat down and took counsel with herself. 

“After all, is n’t it wrong ,” whispered the still 
inner voice, “for you to be disturbed in this way, 


124 THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 

and to let the sight of those turrets darken always 
over your sky? Doesn’t it prove some petty envy 
or bitterness in your own nature, which it is your 
duty to struggle with and overcome ? I know those 
people are rich, and you are poor ; but you, at least, 
are wise and true enough to the best part of your- 
self not to think that can make any real difference 
betwixt you and them; and, see here, are n’t you 
only indulging this unhappy morbid state of feeling 
by avoiding that stone house as carefully as you 
do ? Is n’t it your duty now to walk bravely over 
there and look it squarely in the face? And the 
more disagreeable the duty the plainer the neces- 
sity for performing it, and overcoming once and 
forever the wrong, unhealthful feeling which has 
taken hold of you.” 

And Margaret Phillips was of the number of 
those who, a duty set plain before them, would go 
to prison or the stake to do it; a woman who made 
I must , not I will , the great ruling force of her 
life. And so Margaret Phillips covenanted with 
herself that very evening to walk over to the stone 
house and look her “Mordeeai” in the face, and 
then she went down stairs to help prepare her 
mother’s supper. Poor Margaret! they kept but 
one servant, and she was a little girl. 

The sun was just behind the hills, leaving the 
sky once more for its nightly blossoming of stars, 
when Margaret closed her little cottage gate, and 
took the old turnpike-road which intersected the 


THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 125 

one that led to the stone house. It was a pleasant 
walk, and the soft light and the throbbing hum of 
the insects soothed her, and, walking with her own 
tnoughts, she was greatly startled when, turning an 
abrupt angle in the road, she came suddenly upon 
the house. There it stood before her in its strength 
and stateliness, amid green shrubberies and beauti- 
ful grounds, which made a picture wonderful for 
loveliness all about it, itself the central beauty and 
grace of the whole. 

It seemed to Margaret Phillips, as she gazed on 
the Gothic pile, that she had been suddenly en- 
chanted into some foreign country. She could 
hardly believe that that great, massive palace of 
stone rose in its simple, grand architecture on the 
homely, every-day soil of Woburn, on the very land 
which the farmers sowed every Autumn, and plowed 
every Spring. It seemed to the girls fine, poetic 
instincts — although be it here understood that 
Margaret Phillips had never written a poem since 
she was a school-girl — that that stone palace be- 
longed to the medieval ages, that old legends and 
old songs should cluster thick about it, that brave 
men's deeds and beautiful women’s love and grace 
should have hallowed it; and, musing on all these 
things, and entirely unconscious of herself, she 
strayed through the broad iron gate, and through 
the thick hedges of shrubbery, and smiled up to 
the frowning turrets — her own smile, brave, glad, 
victorious. They could not frighten her any more; 


126 THE TURRETS QF THE STONE HOUSE. 

their power was gone; she had conquered them 1 
And so Margaret Phillips, following the serpen- 
tine path, came into the vicinity of the house. 
The quietness wooed her on, for, although the doors 
were open, there was no sight or sound of human 
life about the dwelling. And so the girl approached 
the veranda on the right side of the house, and, 
leaning against a large horse-chestnut-tree, stood 
still and drank in with hungry eyes the scene be- 
fore her. Suddenly there came the sound of light 
voices and rapid steps to her ear^ and a moment 
later a company of gentlemen and ladies poured 
through the wide doors and scattered up and down 
the great veranda, some of the latter playfully flut- 
tering over the mosaic pavement. 

Margaret stood still under the horse-chestnut in 
some natural embarrassment, hoping that she should 
not be discovered, and would be able to make her 
escape unobserved. She had no idea what a picture 
she made, just in front of the old tree, with the 
sunset dropping its golden festoons all about her. 
She stood there, in her straw hat and the delicate 
lawn dress which two years before had been her 
father’s gift, for one moment in a flutter of embar- 
rassment ; the next her feet were bound to the spot, 
and she lost all consciousness of her position, for 
there were three faces amid the company which she 
recognized, and the first of these was an elderly 
lady, with a portly figure and self-complacent coun- 
tenance, near whom for a moment stood two grace- 


THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 127 

ful, haughty-looking girls. And this lady and those 
girls were the wife and daughters of the former 
senior partner of Mr. Phillips, the man who had 
wronged her father as no other man had ever done, 
the man who had taken advantage of Mr. Phillips’s 
implicit confidence in him, and, managing to evade 
the law, had yet contrived to get his younger part- 
ner’s property into his own hands, and availed him- 
self of Mr. Phillips’s illness to control entirely the 
firm and so involve matters that, at the latter’s 
death, the widow and the daughter had been left 
penniless: and, intimate as the families of the part- 
ners had previously been, Mrs. Lathrop and her 
daughters had entirely neglected Margaret and her 
mother after the change in the latter’s circum- 
stances. The Lathrops were living in splendor now 
on their ill-gotten gains; and all this surged and 
stormed through Margaret’s soul as she gazed on 
them and thought of her delicate mother struggling 
with ill health and poverty in their lonely cottage, 
and of her own hard, daily, toilsome life, and of 
him whose strong arm and loving heart would have 
shielded them from all this injustice and suffering. 
She stood still, with her pale face bent sternly on 
the veranda, almost wondering that some voice from 
heaven did not cry out against those people for the 
wrong which they and theirs had done her. 

And while the girl stood there a group of gentle- 
men and ladies turned suddenly toward that side of 
the veranda nearest her, and started as they all 


128 THE TUKRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 

caught sight of the still figure under the chestnut- 
tree. 

“Who is that lady?” Margaret heard the sur- 
prised question from more than one voice. 

“Ellen, she is a lady; you had best go out and 
proffer her our hospitality,” said one of the young 
gentlemen to a lady who stood near him. 

“0, / know who it is!” interposed at this moment 
an errand boy, who came up with some letters; 
“she is the district school-teacher; my cousin goes 
to her.” 

“Really, Ellen,” interposed at this moment Julia 
Lathrop, the elder of the girls; and she tossed her 
haughty head, and her laugh and her words came 
silver and scornful to Margaret’s ear — “I don’t 
think I should give myself much trouble for the 
sake of a schoolma’am, instead of some princess in 
disguise, as I fancied the lady might be. Your 
hospitality would doubtless overwhelm her. But, 
dear me,” shrugging her pretty shoulders, “I don’t 
think such people ought to be allowed to wander 
around people’s grounds in this fashion. It encour- 
ages too much freedom on their part.” It was quite 
evident that Miss Lathrop had not recognized Mar- 
garet, or she would not have made this speech. 

“I think so, too,” chimed in softly Caroline, the 
younger of the sisters. 

The words and the laugh stung Margaret into a 
white calm. Some impulsion outside of herself 
seemed to send her out from the great horse-chest- 


THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 129 

nut. She walked slowly and steadfastly right up to 
the people on the veranda, and confronted with her 
white face the dozen others that were bent down in 
amazement on her. 

The start and look of blank consternation on three 
of those faces warned Margaret that they had rec- 
ognized her; and turning to Julia Lathrop, she 
said in her clear, soft voice, which kept its tone 
steadfast to the end: “You will please tell your 
friends, Julia, as you well know, that they have 
nothing to apprehend from freedom on my part; 
and as you do not perhaps know, I take here occa- 
sion to tell you that if your father had dealt hon- 
estly or justly by mine, if he had not through all 
the years that he was his partner, and on his dying 
bed, wronged and robbed him, my mother would 
not be now dwelling in poverty and obscurity, 
neither should I be a schoolma’am.” 

The words fired Margaret’s lips, and she could 
not hold them back. Their effect can not easily be 
described. Every one on the veranda heard them, 
and stood still, gazing from the young teacher to 
the Lathrops. They were all, mother and daugh- 
ters, so overwhelmed with surprise, mortification, 
and it may be so conscience-stricken, that they 
could not utter a word. They stood there still, 
with crimson faces, looking confounded and con- 
victed. And so Margaret turned away, and walked 
alone down the avenue which led out of the 
grounds. 


130 THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 

The feeling which had sustained her for a time 
gave way as she was out of every one’s sight. The 
t gray turrets only looked down on the girl and saw 
her stagger feebly beyond the gate, and the tears 
flowed still from the brown eyes of Margaret Phil- 
lips. 

She had not gone far when a quick step aroused 
her, and turning her tear-stained face, she saw 
the young gentleman who had proposed to extend 
her some courtesy when she stood under the chest- 
nut-tree. He was a man about thirty, tall, with a 
fine figure, and a face that was all that and more, 
for though it was not handsome, it was a good, 
strong, cultivated face, a face which compelled you 
to believe it, for it was inspired with justice, and 
courtesy, and real truth and manliness of character. 

“ Madam,” said the young gentleman, lifting his 
hat with a grace which no courtier could have 
rivaled to a lost princess, “if you will do us the 
honor to accept it, we shall be most happy to send 
you home in our carriage. I fear you will find it a 
somewhat long and lonely walk at this late hour.” 

Margaret Phillips little suspected the beautiful 
and eloquent thanks which her brown eyes flashed 
up through their tears to the gentleman, before her 
lips, all unbent now, and with a little tremulous 
flutter about them, answered: “Thank you. I am 
familiar with the road and with loneliness too, so I 
am compelled to decline your courtesy.” 

He did not renew it ; he had fine intuition enough 


THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 131 

to perceive that the girl must prefer just now to be 
alone, so he answered, with a smile, and the smile 
of Gilbert Sackett was not just like the smile of 
most other men, for higher elements entered into 
it: “I hope, then, ma’am, you will give us some 
opportunity of renewing our courtesy at some time 
that shall find greater favor with yourself. We 
have only just learned you were our neighbors.” 
And he lifted his hat and left her. 

And Margaret went her way alone, and the 
young moon was like a silver lily blossoming amid 
the golden buds of stars which filled the sky. 

Three years have passed. In a small alcove 
which opened out of the sitting-room in the stone 
house were gathered one day Mrs. Phillips, and 
Margaret, and Gilbert Sackett. The elder lady 
was a pleasant, gentle, dignified woman, and the 
bands of soft brown hair, faintly sifted with gray, 
lay smoothly about her face, which still retained 
something of the beauty of its girlhood. The gen- 
tleman and lady were hardly changed in these 
years, except that Margaret’s face shone with a 
light and joy which it never wore in those days 
when she carried it up to the old red school in 
faith and patience. 

Margaret was seated by the bay-window, looking, 
with eyes that read its new meanings every day, to 
the beautiful landscape which stretched before her 
in a rain of June sunlight, the soft winds ruffling 


132 THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 

the short grass and loitering among the rare and 
beautiful shrubberies, and as she gazed a flock of 
thoughts or memories came into her head and over 
her face, which, although these were not sorrow, 
yet were touched with something tender and sad. 

“What are you thinking of, my little wife?” 
asked Gilbert Sackett; and he tossed aside the 
paper, threw himself on the lounge, and leaned 
over toward Margaret. 

Her hand, her soft, cool hand, moved tenderly 
through the short, thick, chestnut hair. “What 
makes you ask that question?” — with a faint smile 
just touching her lips. 

“0, several things! Why don’t you answer it, 
Mrs. Sackett?” 

“Had I better indulge him, mamma?” said the 
lady, and this time the smile was emphasized into 
archness as she turned toward her mother. 

“How, mother, I interpose with a protest there,” 
exclaimed the gentleman. “You know you gave up 
your right and title here into my hands a year and 
a half ago, and my claim on her is absolute.” 

“ I believe it is,” answered Mrs. Phillips, smiling 
fondly on her children. 

“There, Margaret, you hear!” 

“Well, if you put it in that light,” smiled the 
young wife, “I see no choice left but obedience and 
confession. So, I was thinking of some mornings, 
which are not so far off but that they rise up very 
vividly before me now and then, and wondering how 


THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 133 

I should have felt at that time had any one told me, 
as I went up through the lane to the old red school- 
house, and caught sight of the gray turrets that 
used to haunt and trouble me so, that in less than 
three years I should be the mistress here!” 

“What should you have felt, little woman?” 
laughed Gilbert Sackett, pinching the small rose in 
his wife’s cheek. 

“It is impossible for me to tell. Yesterday, when 
you wore away, I walked up through that old lane, 
and tried to feel as I used to, and to contrast the 
past with the * to-day.’ ” 

“And did you succeed, my dear child?” asked 
her mother, for both husband and parent were evi- 
dently touched with Margaret’s simple avowal. 

“Well, partly. I hope that I realize both with 
sufficient force and vividness to gather some lessons, 
some good from out them.” 

“Ah, Margaret, you are not like other women; 
you never were, and from that first time that I 
looked on your face till this day, you have always 
been unconsciously doing something quaint and orig- 
inal, something to startle and surprise me.” 

The small rose widened into bright bloom in 
the cheek of Margaret Sackett. “0, Gilbert, I was 
not seeking for quaintness or originality then!” 

“My darling, nobody would ever suspect you of 
that. Do you suppose so prosaic and sensible a 
man as I am would have been so completely con- 
quered at first sight as I was, had I not known well 


134 THE TURRETS OF THE STONE HOUSE. 

a vast deal more than you suspected, 0 innocent 
Margaret?” 

“I wonder what gave me courage to do and say 
what I did at that time?” said the lady, speaking 
softly, half to herself. 

“I don’t; it was like you at such a time and 
under such circumstances. And, Margaret, I close 
my eyes, and see the whole scene again.” 

Before the lady could answer, a domestic sud- 
denly entered with some letters for Mr. Sackett. 
Breaking the seal of the first one, with an apology 
to the ladies, he read for a little while. 

At last he looked up. “Ellen and her husband 
have taken a house near Paris, and mother and 
Elizabeth will remain with them for a year or two; 
so, Margaret, you are sole mistress of the stone 
house, turrets and all.” 

“How those turrets are changed to me now!” she 
said. “ They stand to me, wherever I catch a 
glimpse of them, as a sign of all home-warmth, and 
grace, and happiness, and I have grown to love 
and welcome the sight of them always.” 

“Margaret, shall I tell you just what I am 
thinking of just now?” 

“Yes; I shall be glad always to know your 
thoughts, Gilbert” — her little fingers braiding 
themselves once more in the bright chestnut hair. 

“ I am thinking that you are a very good woman, 
Margaret — the best woman, it seems to me, that 
God ever gave a man for his especial love and 


THE TURRETS OP THE STONE HOUSE. 135 

cherishing; and that I shall be a truer, better man 
because of your power and influence about my life.” 
He spoke solemnly, fervidly now, looking into her 
face. 

The tears were in her brown eyes now, as she 
leaned over him and said: “0, Gilbert, what you 
last said is the one prayer of my life!” And Mar- 
garet Sackett did not suspect that that prayer was 
its own fulfillment! 






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HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE, 


CHAPTER I. 

“Take a chair, sir — take a chair, sir!” said Mr. 
Jerome Reynolds to the minister. And he said it 
with some unusual quality of cordiality in his voice, 
and urbanity in his manner ; for be it here premised, 
that Mr. Jerome Reynolds was one of the wealthiest 
men in Woodside, and rather accustomed to receiv- 
ing a certain degree of deference from those with 
whom he was brought in social juxtaposition; so 
that his own bearing had acquired a certain self- 
complacency, bordering on pompousness, which a 
man is very apt to have whor carries with him 
always an agreeable consciousness of some superior- 
ity to his fellow-men. 

Mr. Solomon Dayton, the pastor of the large 
Congregational Church at Woodside, was a gentle- 
man of the old school, and he accepted the luxuri- 
ous arm-chair in his usual courteous and somewhat 
elaborate manner — not a whit more elaborate to- 
ward his host and wealthiest parishioner than he 
was, an hour before, to his washer-woman, when, in 


138 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 


a flurry of embarrassment and pleasure, sbe placed 
her rocking-chair for him in the front room of her 
yellow one-story cottage, in the small alley which 
bounded the back grounds of Mr. Reynolds’s resi- 
dence. 

The clergyman and his host would have formed 
that morning an attractive study to eyes looking 
out of a keen, thoughtful soul. There was a sin- 
gular contrast in the two faces, as they sat opposite 
each other, in the lofty sitting-room of the stateliest 
dwelling in all Woodside. They were both old 
men — the host and his guest— and the locks of 
both were frosted white with their years. Mr. 
Reynolds’s expression was of that keen, rapid, intel- 
ligent kind, which years of dealing with his fellow- 
men, and of contact with them in business relations, 
and the faculty of sharp foresight and swift prac- 
tical deductions, is apt to give a man. Mr. Dayton’s 
face was of altogether a different cast, an ample, 
scholarly, intellectual face, somewhat pale, and re- 
fined by serious thought and study, and possessing 
beyond that a kindliness and sympathy which no 
words can reach, but which the meekest and lowli- 
est can feel, and which was wanting in the other. 

So the old gentlemen sat together and talked, 
and the sunshine, broken by the heavy curtains, 
spattered the carpet, and laughed broad along the 
walls, and gilded the massive old furniture. And 
the talk of the two gentlemen touched on various 
general topics, philosophical, political, moral; for 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 139 

this latter element always seasoned, like some fra- 
grant spice, the speech of the clergyman, Solomon 
Dayton. And at last, in a pause of this desultory 
talk, the banker cleared his throat and said, in a 
graver tone: 

“ I ’ve wanted to see you, my friend, for several 
days, to consult you on a matter that 's been weigh- 
ing on my mind for a year or two ; and there s no 
man whose advice in this thing will carry with it 
quite so much weight as yours.” 

“I shall be very happy to give you any counsel 
that 's in my power, sir,” answered the clergyman, 
tapping the arm of his chair, softly. 

“I was certain of that at the beginning; and, to 
reach the point at once, Mr. Dayton, I 'm reminded 
almost every day, by some growing weakness or 
infirmity, that I 'm an old man now, and that I 
must soon leave my place and my work to others; 
and I think it 's every man's duty to make his will 
while he is in full possession of his reason and 
health.” 

“Just so — just so. We ought not to leave any 
work undone while the day lasts, my friend; and, 
as you say, it 's getting toward night with you and 
me now,” added the clergyman, who viewed the 
matter from a somewhat different stand-point from 
his parishioner. 

“ I m anxious to secure this money from being 
scattered to the four winds when I am gone. I 
should like to feel it was doing a little good in the 


140 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 


world. It has cost me a life of hard, steady toil; 
for I made every dollar of my fortune myself, sir.” 
Mr. Reynolds added this with a good deal of com- 
placency, and it did not strike him at the time 
that, however anxious he might feel about the good 
his wealth should accomplish when he was under 
the ground, he had never manifested any solicitude 
on that score while he was above it — a singular 
fact in the history of many rich men. 

“That is certainly a natural desire for a man 
whom the Lord has made steward of so large a 
portion in. his household,” answered the clergyman, 
out of the sincerity of his heart. “My friend, I 
shall be glad to aid you all I can; and on every 
side there are noble institutions and blessed char- 
ities languishing for means to carry them on to the 
full attainment of their high purposes, both for 
God and man. But a man owes something to his 
friends and relatives, if they are deserving; and I 
suppose these, in your case, will receive, as they 
justly should, the first consideration?” 

Certainly Mr. Reynolds had never put himself to 
himself in that light before; never conceived it pos- 
sible that lie could occupy the relation of debtor to 
any man in the world. He moved a little uneasily 
in his chair. 

“I have, as you know, my dear sir, no family of 
my own, and most of my distant relatives are well 
provided for, with the exception perhaps of a single 
family — that of the widow and orphans of my late 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 


141 


half-brother, Lucius Eeynolds. I have, of course, a 
number of legacies to leave, and old friends to re- 
member in my will.” 

“ And this family of your late brother’s ? I think 
you spoke of them as being possessed of small 
means?” pursued the clergyman, to whom the very 
sound of widow and orphans had something touch- 
ing and significant. 

Mr. Eeynolds settled himself back in his chair — 
“Ye-es,” speaking half to himself, half to his min- 
ister, “ I imagine that must be the case, although, 
to own the truth, I have heard little or nothing of 
the family since . the death of Lucius, some eight 
years ago. He left three or four children, I be- 
lieve; but the family moved off into Hew York 
State some time previous to his death. The truth 
is, Lucius never had any business capacity, and 
would be sure to come out a poor man, let him put 
his hand to whatever he might.” And here the 
speaker’s tone was pendulous betwixt pity and con- 
tempt. “He was a good-hearted, good-natured fel- 
low, honest to the core, sensible and intelligent, too. 
I believe he was cut out for a scholar, if circum- 
stances hadn’t baffled him there; but, though he 
had as fair a chance as I did, he was sure to come 
out without a dollar.” 

“Ah, my friend, you to whom the Lord has 
given the power and capacity of gaining wealth, 
owe him a great debt of thanks,” said the minister. 

Mr. Eeynolds had, during the course of his long 


142 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 


life, been much more in the habit of giving the 
glory to his own business sagacity and energy, in- 
stead of to his Maker; but perhaps he was not just 
then conscious of this. 

“I suppose we," do he answered, which was, 
after all, little more than a verbal acquiescence he 
felt bound as a matter of course to render to the 
minister’s remark. “As I was saying, I haven’t 
heard from the family for years. Lucius was ten 
years my junior; but I ’ll hunt them up, and remem- 
ber them, for the sake of relationship, in my will.” 
And then the rich banker went on to state to his 
pastor that he wished to endow the young college at 
Woodside, on which the minister’s heart was set, 
with a hundred thousand dollars, and found a 
young men’s institute, which would take another 
hundred thousand, and leave a fund to remodel the 
ancient church; and the good old clergyman’s heart 
was in all these things, and he entered into them 
with the deepest enthusiasm; and so, before noon, 
the whole four hundred thousand dollars, which 
Jerome Reynolds had been all his life heaping to- 
gether, was disposed of; and at last the clergyman 
drew his handkerchief across his forehead, heated 
with the eagerness of his talk, and said, with a 
smile : 

“Well, my friend, though you leave neither wife 
nor children to inherit them, yet you have not 
gathered together your riches for nothing. Your 
name will not die with you, for generations will 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 


143 


rise up and call you blessed, long after you have 
laid still in the grave.” 

These were very pleasant words to the rich old 
banker from his pastor — from the man, too, whose 
character he respected, and whose piety he revered 
above that of all other men. It somehow made 
him feel that the road to heaven would be a very 
smooth one to him, and that his pastor's testimony 
would be indorsed there. 

And at that moment the servant entered, bring- 
ing in a waiter, with cake and coffee, and a dish 
heaped with small early pears, that seemed like a 
pile of jewels of gold and opal, as the sun struck in 
and over them. 

“ Now, my friend, we ’ve settled these things, and 
I shall have the will drawn up, signed and sealed 
before another Saturday night goes over my head,” 
said the host. “ You ’ll take a little lunch after 
your long talk?” 

“Thank you!” The clergyman looked at his 
watch. “We keep up very primitive customs at 
our house, and dine at one; and it wants only half 
an hour of it.” 

“No matter, a cup of coffee and a little fruit 
won’t spoil your appetite.” 

And, partly for courtesy’s sake, the minister ac- 
cepted the invitation; and while he was sipping his 
coffee, and secretly congratulating the town of 
Woodside on its good fortune, the thought of the 
banker’s dead brother presented itself to his mind 


144 HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 

again. He was a just man to the core, and so he 
said, suddenly/ 

“I hope, my dear sir, that in these grand public 
charities of yours, we have not forgotten any private 
ones. We must be just in the least, as well as in 
the greatest matter ; and a rich man owes, as I said, 
something first to his relatives, if they need it, and 
are worthy of it. You will not forget this orphan 
family of your brother’s?” 

Somehow, while Mr. Eeynolds was very enthu- 
siastic about all his public donations and endow- 
ments, he never felt a particle of interest when his 
brother’s family was mentioned. Indeed, although 
he never troubled himself to divine the cause, he 
was conscious of a certain feeling of aversion when- 
ever the subject was alluded to. But the minister 
thrust the matter home in the light of a debt and 
a duty, and so, to appease his conscience on the sub- 
ject, Mr. Eeynolds answered: 

“Well, I will make some inquiries here, and, if 
they need it, I will put them down for twenty-five 
thousand dollars in my will. That will certainly be 
generous enough to a family whom I have not seen 
for fifteen years, and who probably expect nothing 
of me.” 

Parson Dayton agreed with his host, and soon 
after took his leave. 

In less than a week after the conversation trans- 
pired betwixt the banker and the clergyman, the 
former happened to meet a gentleman who resided 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 145 

in the pleasant country town in New York where 
his brother had lived and died, arid was buried. 
Mr. Reynolds made various inquiries respecting the 
family of his relative, and was answered in a brief, 
matter-of-fact way; for the gentleman of whom the 
inquiries were made was one of those practical busi- 
ness men who have little interest or sympathy to 
spare for others. Mr. Reynolds, however, managed 
to learn that the widow and her four children were 
all living, and that although the family were highly 
esteemed in the community, they were left without 
any fortune, and the delicate mother and her young 
sons and daughters must have had a hard struggle 
i with the world. 

Hearing this, for the moment, the heart of Mr. 
Reynolds softened. The memory of his now dead 
brother rose up from the east land of his soul, and 
walked over the billowy years, and stood tender and 
fair in the west of his life. He plunged his hand 
into his pocket, and glanced toward his writing- 
desk with a half-defined purpose of sending his 
sister-in-law a check for a few hundred dollars; and 
it seemed to him that the fair face of his dead wife, 
and his two sweet young children, who had slept 
side by side so long, looked down over the billowy 
years and smiled on him. 

But the gentleman went on to speak of other 
matters, and Mr. Reynolds thought, “No matter, 
it will do just as well after he has gone,” and the 

face that had arisen and walked out of the land of 
io 


146 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 


his youth, and the faces which had shone down on 
him out of the later years faded away, and when 
the rich man was left alone again to take counsel 
with his own thoughts, the old griping and grudg- 
ing of his wealth, which had taken such deep root 
in his soul, vanquished his better impulses again. 

“They’ll have that twenty-five thousand in a lit- 
tle while,” said Jerome Reynolds to himself. “ I 've 
done well by them in my will, and I sha’ n’t live long 
to keep them away from enjoying it. Little they’ll 
be apt to care for that under the circumstances.” 

And so putting it in this light he grew slightly 
indignant with these, his nearest relatives on earth, 
and somehow felt himself a wronged, ill-treated 
man, and at last took refuge in the thought of how 
people would talk and wonder when his will was 
made known; and he wondered, too, whether the 
new buildings, which were to be erected on the site 
he had designated in his last will and testament, 
would be christened the Reynolds Library. It 
would certainly be most natural and fitting that 
they should be! 


CHAPTER II. 

The little white cottage sat pleasantly behind its 
two small, drooping firs. Mignonnette, and helio- 
trope, and moss roses, made their white and purple 
foam and their coals of bloom on the small circular 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 


147 


mound which tasteful hands had raised a few feet 
from the front windows. Altogether, that little cot- 
tage would somehow have attracted and held your 
gaze, if you are the kind of person I hope you are, 
0 my reader! 

Inside of this little cottage, whose roof, you saw 
at once could not cover more than six or eight 
rooms, sat, on the Summer morning of which I 
write, four of its five occupants. The elder of these 
was a lady past the prime of her years; and yet 
you would hardly have called her old, although her 
dark hair was so thickly tufted with gray, and a few 
lines were graven deep in her forehead, and the pale, 
smooth cheeks had dropped all their bloom years 
ago. It was a sweet, sad, motherly face — a face 
over which you felt at the first glance terrible 
storms had thundered, and left it waiting patiently 
and steadfastly. 

A little way from the mother sat a young girl, 
who hardly looked her years, and they were only 
sixteen. It was the mothers face over again, with 
all the thin outlines softly rounded, and the carna- 
tion bloom in the cheeks — a delicate bldom that, 
looking on, you felt rude winds or any rough usage 
would surely blight and quench. The young girl's 
face was half-hidden by the thick, soft hair which 
shaded the cheeks, and stood out in a rich maroon 
hue where* the sunbeams touched it. She was 
wholly absorbed as she sat by the table in some 
volume over which her head was bent low. 


148 HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 

And in an opposite corner sat a boy and girl, he 
in his fourteenth, and she in her twelfth year. 
They were shelling peas, which half an hour before 
they had gathered from the garden; and the roses 
they had found there burned healthful in both their 
cheeks. They were a pretty picture, sitting there 
with their young heads bowed over the large tin 
basin, into which flowed constantly the small tribu- 
tary of peas, that the pods furnished to their rapid 
fingers. The boy had a bright, eager, open face, a 
good deal sun-burnt with working outdoors, and 
the girl's had some general resemblance to her 
brother’s — a pretty, childish face, with wide, blue, 
wondering eyes, which seemed to hold a laugh that 
some thought or experience had touched with seri- 
ousness. 

“Elizabeth, my child,” said the mother, in her 
sweet, anxious tones to her elder daughter, as she 
laid down her sewing, “do leave that book for a 
little while. You’ll be sure to get sick again if 
you don’t take care.” 

Elizabeth Reynolds looked up with a little plead- 
ing smile that touched her whole face with a new 
life. 

“I think I shall stand it this time, mamma,” she 
said. “You know next week the committee meet, 
and if I can get through with the examination, I 
shall have the school — Mr. Jacobs said I should, 
and then there’ll be four dollars a week for us!” 

It was worth something to hear the tone of joy- 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 149 

ful triumph with which she uttered these last 
words. 

The little girl in the corner paused in her work, 
and a very plethoric pod scattered its contents on 
her lap, and they freckled over her gingham apron 
as she whispered: 

“Just think how much money that will be, 
Harry!" 

“ I know it, Ellen. Some day, though, I mean to 
make a good deal of money too !” 

Here the mother’s voice interposed again. 

“ I know it ’s a good deal of money, dear, but I 
do n’t see how in the world you can take such a 
responsibility on yourself at your age, and with 
your health. Then there's that long walk of a 
mile and a half every morning and evening!’’ 

“0, mother, I can, I will do it,” answered Eliza- 
beth Reynolds, her fair young face kindling with 
solemn purpose. “Don’t you know what this 
money will be to all of us, and how it will help lift 
the dreadful burden off poor Norman’s life, and get 
you a doctor, and do so many things for all of us ! 
As for the walk, it ’ll do me good on pleasant days, 
and Mr. Jacobs says he ’ll take me over in the 
milk-cart on stormy ones. He’s the best friend 
we’ve got in this world!” 

Mrs. Reynolds sighed to herself. She thought of 
her young son toiling beyond his strength and his 
years for his widowed mother and his orphan 
brother and sisters, and her heart ached for him. 


150 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 


Poor woman, it had ached on through the long, 
slow, weary years, till it seemed to her that she 
could hardly remember a time when it had been 
free from pain! She thought of that slow, iron 
poverty which lay so heavily and terrible on all 
their lives, and of the Winter that was coming, and 
she did not dare to enter a protest against her 
daughter's determination to take the district school 
that year, inadequate as she knew Elizabeth’s years 
and health were to so arduous and responsible a 
work. 

Ten years ago Mrs. Reynolds had seen the hus- 
band of her youth covered up under the gray flan- 
nels of the Autumn grass. She was a delicate, 
tenderly-reared woman, very little fitted for hard 
wrestling with the world. But she had four help- 
less children left dependent on her alone, and for 
their sakes she roused herself and struggled with 
the world as she never could for her own. 

Her husband had been unfortunate in all his later 
business enterprises, and a few debts, and a few 
hundred dollars, was all that he left to the widow. 
Mrs. Reynolds possessed the genius of economy. 
She managed to live somehow with the help of 
those few hundred dollars, by renting a small cot- 
tage, cultivating the acre of ground about it, and 
teaching a small school. But at last her health 
failed her, her little fund was exhausted; and then 
her eldest son obtained the situation of under- 
clerk in a wholesale store in the town. So they 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 


151 


had managed to exist for the last three years, de- 
pending mostly on Norman’s wages, which it almost 
broke the mother’s heart to take. But the exercise 
of the most rigid economy could not entirely avert 
the debts which slowly accumulated on one side and 
another. The whole of these did not at this time 
amount- to two hundred dollars; but it was enough 
to haunt the soul of the mother, by night and by 
day, like some awful presence of terror, and eat 
with its slow rust into the very springs of her life, 
and lie with its brooding shadow on the blossom- 
ing youth of her children! 

Dear reader, God forbid that I should magnify in 
any wise the value of money! Biches heaped to- 
gether for the good of the owners thereof, and be- 
queathed to children, are perhaps oftener a curse 
than a blessing, and may so be read when the books 
are opened and the day shall declare it! Good, 
brave, strong wrestling with poverty never yet hurt 
any man — it has made thousands! 

How many a youth has been ruined, body and 
soul, whose life might otherwise have been a bless- 
ing to himself and his generation, because a fortune 
fell to him ! How many a poor, nervous, morbid, in- 
dolent woman, absorbed in herself, and in her own 
narrow life and petty needs, has been made all this 
because her money precluded the necessity of all- 
healthful exertion and activity on her part, and 
made all the forces of her life centripetal, no one 
can undertake to declare ! 


152 now ONE WILL WAS MADE. 

But the weak, the tender, the delicately reared, 
and helpless, they who need the strong arm and the 
stout heart to shield them from the storms and the 
struggle of life — to them, when left alone and out 
in the cold of the world to do battle with it — to 
them is poverty a curse — a thing bitter, and 
strong, and terrible, beyond all that my pen can 
write. 

Surrounded on all sides with its darkness, with 
no earthly hand to help or to deliver — the mean, 
the greedy, the coarse, and the selfish taking ad- 
vantage of their want and weakness, to press and 
insult them if they are any-wise in their power — 0, 
to these, the young, the weak, the helpless — God be 
witness that the words which I write here are 
words of truth and honesty — is poverty a bitter 
and a fearful thing! 

It was this to .the wife and the children of Lucius 
Reynolds; and yet the brother who had dwelt with 
him under one roof, and with whom he played 
through the bright years of his early boyhood, 
could, without feeling it, by a mere stroke of his 
hand, have bestowed on them a few hundreds of his 
many thousands, and lifted all the weight and the 
cold dread from the heart of the mother and the 
young lives about her, and made them brimming 
over with gladness! 

It was no excuse for him that he did not know 
all this — that if any body had presented it to him 
in such a light, he certainlv would have done some- 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 


153 


thing. It was his duty to search out and know the 
truth. Were they not his relatives! and does not 
a man owe to them his first duty and fealty? 
Truly God declares how he values wealth, in the 
sort of men whom he often allows to attain it ! 

And as the little group sat there that Summer 
morning, with rifts of sunshine on the faded carpet 
and old-fashioned chairs — relics of better and hap- 
pier days — the door was suddenly thrown open, and 
Norman Beynolds entered the room. He was 
a slender youth, with the same thoughtful, delicate 
cast of features as his sister — bold and strong 
enough not to be feminine though. 

With the first glance at his face, his family saw 
that something had happened to him; it was white 
as a living face can be, and a terrible, wild despair 
was in his brown, large eyes. 

n O, what is the matter, my boy?" asked the 
mother, and her heart leaped into her voice. 

The youth sat down and looked on each of them 
in a haggard, bewildered way, which was pitiful 
to see. 

“I've lost my place this morning." He said it 
in slow, hopeless tones, which told how the iron 
had entered his soul. 

“0, Norman!" 

Even the mother’s cry of surprise and pain was 
added to the chorus of her children. 

“It’s true. You’d got to know the truth, and 
there was no way to keep it from you if I lived at 


154 HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 

all, and God knows how I longed to die before I 
should come home and utter these words to you ! 
They said they’d no fault to find with me. I’d 
done the best that I could ; but they wanted stouter 
muscles and heavier strength than I could bring to 
the work where there was so much lifting and lug- 
ging to be done; so they’d got a stout young Ger- 
man in my place. What is to become of us now, 
mother ?” 

There was no answer — a cold chill crept over 
each one. They looked in each other’s white faces 
and found no comfort there. 

“And our rent is due, and we haven’t a dollar 
in the world to meet it! 0, mother, it isn’t for 
my sake that I care, but for yours, and the 
children’s !” 

Then the courage and faith which lay at the core 
of Mrs. Eeynolds’s soul, and which had carried her 
through all these years, roused themselves at the 
sight of her crushed boy. 

“Don’t give up, my darling,” she said, in her 
sweet, brave tones. “ God will not suffer us to 
perish. Some way that we do not look for, he will 
take care of us.” 

And Elizabeth, to whom Norman was dearer 
than her own life, slipped over to his side and put 
her soft cheek down to his, and her little fingers 
fluttered tenderly in his brown curls, as she whis- 
pered : 

“Don’t take it so hard, Norman dear. I feel 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 155 

almost certain that I shall get the district school, 
and I shall earn four dollars a week, and that s as 
much as your salary into one dollar ; we shall get 
on somehow, I know we shall.” 

“And I m just going to ask farmer Jacobs to 
find me a place as chore-boy, somewhere,” said 
Harry, getting up, and looking very fierce and 
brave; “and I can earn a dollar a week, I’ll bet 
now.” 

“And I mean to get some of the bags from the 
factory,” chimed in the childish voice of Ellen, as 
she pushed back her golden curls from her girlish 
face. “I can make four a day, and get twenty-five 
cents a dozen!” 

And so — brave hearts — they tried to comfort 
the elder brother, till at last he put his hand over 
his eyes, and when he drew it away there were 
tears in their brown depths. The brave, tender, 
hopeful youth — he was comforted at last. 

“Mother, isn’t there somebody in the world who 
would be willing to help us a little just now — 
we might pay them some time, and it would not 
seem just like applying for charity?” asked Eliza- 
beth. 

The mother shook her head; and then a moment 
later looked up. 

“Your father had an only brother and he was a 
rich man,” she said. “If I knew where he was 
living, I should certainly write to him, and in the 
name of the dead entreat him to do something for 


156 HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 

the living. But I lost all knowledge of him years 
ago.” 

“Our help must come of ourselves and God!” 
said Elizabeth, and her young face seemed trans- 
figured for the moment with the brave, steadfast 
smile that glowed all over it. 

“ I shall go off in a few days if I can’t get any 
thing to do here,” interposed Norman, and so they 
all took comfort and courage at last. 

And in this town where Mrs. Reynolds and her 
children lived were many wealthy people; many 
broad-minded, generous people too, whom any tale 
of sorrow or suffering would have touched, who 
never allowed a beggar to go unfed or unclothed 
from their door. But because Mrs. Reynolds never 
made any sign of her need, because she was a gen- 
tlewoman by birth, breeding, and life, who could 
not solicit charity, it never entered the minds of 
these people that they might bestow theirs in some 
such delicate manner as should not wound her 
natural sensitiveness. It never entered the minds 
of these people, I said, but it should, for they knew 
that her husband had died insolvent, and left his 
invalid wife and children with no resources. 

It would have been easy enough for some gen- 
erous, unknown heart to have helped her in quiet, 
secret ways, so that she should never even have 
suspected the hand which was reached out to her 
rescue in the hour of her sore need, and verily the 
giver would not have lost his reward. 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 157 

But people ?.re as careless and injudicious in tlieir 
charities as in most other things, and the coarse, 
the importunate, and often the undeserving get the 
most. 

Five days after Norman [Reynolds had lost his 
place, his sister Elizabeth burst into the little sit- 
ting-room. The family happened to be all there, 
for it was just at sundown. 

“0, mother,” she said, tossing her bonnet on the 
table, and fairly dancing up and down in her joy, 
“I’ve got the school! I've got the school!” It 
was the first gleam of light that had shone through 
the darkness about them. 

During this interval Norman had vainly exerted 
himself to obtain some employment. The delicate, 
slender youth was not fitted for that rough labor 
which required strong sinews and iron muscles, and 
consequently his efforts had been unavailing. 

Elizabeth brought further good tidings. Farmer 
Jacobs had agreed to take Harry during harvesting, 
and pay him a dollar a week. 

“There, now, don’t look disconsolate any longer. 
We’ll make up your salary betwixt us,” cried the 
boy to his brother, after performing a series of 
gymnastics — the first ebullition of his delight at 
the news. 

But Mrs. Beynolds looked at Elizabeth, and her 
heart misgave her. She looked so young and deli- 
cate, so little fitted for the work which stark neces- 
sity forced upon her. 


158 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 


“God help my poor child!” prayed the mother. 

“Next week I shall start off,” whispered Norman 
to his mother. “The landlord will let us keep the 
house three or four weeks more, and now I shall 
not be haunted with the fear that you are starving 
while I am gone!” 

“My dear hoy!” and Mrs. ^Reynolds looked up, 
and smiled through her tears. 

Three weeks more went by, and one afternoon in 
midsummer a wagon set Norman Eeynolds down 
once more at the cottage door. He made an effort 
to dismount, but was unable to do so, and the 
driver who had brought him from the depot was 
obliged to lift him out as he would have done a little 
child. He staggered into the house, where loving, 
pitying faces gathered about him. A few words 
will tell the story he told them. For some days he 
had been unsuccessful in obtaining employment, and 
he had not sufficient means to procure comfortable 
lodgings; consequently, he had been much exposed 
during inclement weather. At last, however, he 
had succeeded in obtaining work at unloading 
a vessel; the labor was beyond his strength, the 
exposure was great; but he had determined to con- 
tinue at his post till the work was finished. So, 
with moral heroism which the angels took note of, 
he staggered to his work every mbrning; his head 
would swim strangely — one moment cold chills 
would seize him, and chatter his teeth together, 
and shake him to and fro as the bitterest blasts of 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 


159 


Winter never did, and these would be followed by 
strange heats that throbbed fiercely in his temples, 
and beat in all his pulses, and left him at last half 
blinded, and with a sick faintness all over him. 
But the last day came finally; the work was done; 
he had earned fifteen dollars; and as soon as he 
had received his pay, he had staggered off to the 
depot and come home. 

“And now, mother,” he said, “I want to go to 
bed, and fall asleep with you sitting close by me, as 
I used to when I was a little boy. I have dreamed 
of it through all these long, slow days that I’ve 
been away from you.” 

But he was too weak to walk to his bed at last, 
and that night Norman Beynolds lay in a raging 
fever, moaning about his mother and the rent that 
was unpaid, and the home that was so far off, and 
the work which was so heavy and hard! It was 
heart-rending to hear him. He lay for the next 
week in the clutch of that terrible fever, which had 
drunk so deeply into his young life during that 
time of hard labor and exposure. 

As soon as his illness was noised abroad, people 
crowded in on all sides to do kindly offices for the 
invalid. The physician was unceasing in his atten- 
tions. The tables were heaped with all rare fruits 
and confections, which the sick youth could not 
touch, but the cost of which, a week before, would 
have saved all his suffering. 

The fever fired his brain, and paroxysms of in- 


160 HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 

sanity alternated with stupors of insensibility. It 
was pitiful to see him lying there, with his wild, 
brown eyes burning like coals out of his white face, 
and beseeching those who gathered around his bed- 
side not to take his place away, for his mother and 
sisters would starve if they did. 

But the end came at last. One night he seemed 
to be sleeping, and the watcher who took the post 
at midnight by his bedside fell into a doze. They 
knew afterward that Norman must have risen from 
his bed and stolen out softly into the night. His 
strength could not have carried him far, but there 
was a pond only a short distance from his mother’s 
door. He walked to the brink of this and sprang 
in. The water was hardly deep enough to reach to 
his shoulders, but he must have fainted away when 
it closed over him; and, in a little while, the life 
and the fever dropped forever from the brain of 
poor Norman Beynolds. 

The next morning they found him, and carried 
him home to his mother and his sisters; he would 
never have to go out again to seek for work ! Of 
that morning we can not write ; but the rich, child- 
less old man, in his stately home at Woodside, was 
responsible for that night’s work — for that stricken 
home ! 

Three years more had gone over the cottage roof 
where Mrs. Beynolds and her children still dwelt. 
They had been like the rest — years of steady 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 161 

struggle and battling witli poverty and physical 
weakness. During all this time Elizabeth had kept 
her arduous position of teacher of the large district 
school, at a salary of four dollars a week in the 
Summer, and five in the Winter. 

Her brother, who was now sixteen, had a situa- 
tion as clerk in a dry-goods store, with a hundred 
and fifty dollars per annum, and these formed the 
entire resources of the family. 

On the Autumn afternoon of which I write, Mrs. 
Reynolds sat in her old place by the window. The 
lines on her pale face had grown deeper since the 
death of her boy, and the silver shone brighter and 
thicker in her hair. Ellen had just laid the table- 
cloth for supper. The round, childish face was 
blossoming into the soft outlines of early woman- 
hood, and the laugh held by the deep-blue eyes 
had lost somewhat more of its old merriment, but 
nothing of its cheerfulness. 

“ Is n't it strange, mother, that Elizabeth do n’t 
come?” she asked, smoothing the corners of the fine 
ancient damask. 

“Yes, dear, I was just thinking of that. The 
wind is blowing up cool, too. I’m afraid it will 
bring on her cough again.” 

The door opened, and Elizabeth Reynolds entered 
the room. She had grown taller and slighter in 
these three years, and the small roses were quite 
quenched in her fair young cheeks. She sat down 

in the nearest chair without removing hep bonnet, 
ii 


162 HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 

and shawl, and burying her face in her hands burst 
into tears. 

“Why, my darling, what is the matter?” eagerly 
asked her mother. 

“ It ’s taken me two hours to get home to-night, 
mother. I had to sit down three times on the road, 
and the pain in my side has been sharp as the cut 
of a knife all day. 0, mother, my health has all 
gone !” 

Mrs. Reynolds rose and walked feebly to her 
child — “My daughter,” she said, “I have tried to 
shut my eyes to it for the last year. That school 
is killing you.” 

“But, mother, I must die then, for I can not 
give it up so long as I can crawl or stagger there.” 

“Yes, you can,” interposed Ellen, coming for- 
ward, her eyes full of tears, but a brave purpose 
shining through them. “I can take your place, 
Elizabeth, for a while, till you get stronger. You 
don’t know how much this has been on my mind, 
nor how hard I ’ve been studying lately in view of 
it; for I saw you were sinking under the work.” 

A severe attack of coughing retarded the young 
teacher’s answer, and before it was over there came 
a loud, hasty summons at the front door. Ellen 
answered it, and Mr. Jacobs, a sun-burnt, broad- 
shouldered, stolid farmer, with an honest, good- 
natured face, -walked right in. Years ago he had 
been Mr. Reynolds’s gardener, and had always 
proved himself a stanch friend of the family. 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 


163 


“Mrs. Reynolds,” speaking in his kindly, abrupt 
way, “here’s a letter for you I just found at the 
post-office, and I thought I might as well step over 
on my way home, and hand it in.” 

The widow took the letter in silent surprise. 
She did not recognize the bold, business hand, and 
opened the envelope in a little nervous tremor. It 
was written by one of the executors of Jerome 
Reynolds’s will, and briefly informed her that her 
husband’s brother had died recently and suddenly, 
and had left her and her children in his will the 
sum of twenty-five thousand dollars. Mrs. Reynolds 
laid down the letter. 

“What does it mean? — what does it mean?” she 
asked, turning from one astonished face to the 
other; for the tidings had fairly bewildered her. 
It was too much — too good to believe. 

Mr. Jacobs seized the letter in some alarm, and 
read it aloud, carrying his voice steady to the 
close. The sun-burnt face of the farmer was ra- 
diant for joy as he finished. 

“Wall,” was his characteristic comment, “if that 
'ere an’t the greatest windfall!” and he drew a long 
breath. 

Ellen was the first who seemed really to compre- 
hend the meaning of the letter. 

“I’ll tell you what it is,” she cried, amid her 
jets of happy tears — “it’s life, and peace, and 
comfort to us all. It’s rest and medicine for you, 
mamma,, and Elizabeth. It’s a new and pleasant 


164 HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 

home, and freedom from the long poverty, which 
has eaten into our very lives, for us all.” 

Then Harry came in. These three years had 
changed him into a tall, slender youth. He was 
not long in hearing the good tidings. Of what 
followed it is easier to imagine than to write. 
The long darkness was over for them at last, and 
with the death of Jerome Reynolds the morning 
had dawned for them. Harry and Ellen talked the 
most, and laid all kinds of plans for the future. 

u We ’ll rent some new, pleasant little cottage, 
Harry, and you shall have a horse and carriage, 
and take mamma and Elizabeth to ride every day; 
and you and I will go to the academy; and you 
can prepare for college — only think of it all!” 

“It's glorious, Ellen. What makes you so still 
over it all, Elizabeth?” 

The young girl smiled. 

“I like to sit and hear you and Ellen talk, and 
think I shall not have to go to school to-morrow.” 

“No, nor never any more — thank God!” said 
her mother. 

And in the hollow of Elizabeth Reynolds’s cheek, 
there glowed now something that was like a bright 
living coal of fire; and the mother’s voice broke up 
into sobs. 

“0, if my dead boy out yonder had only lived 
to see this day!” she said; and the glad faces 
around her all fell into a shadow of grief. 

The mother’s lightened first. 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 


165 


“He has gone to possess better riches than these, 
nor would I now wish to recall him/’ she said, with 
a smile, that made her wan face beautiful. 


CHAPTER III. 

“It’s a handsome monument, Harry.” 

“Very, Ellen; and a handsome epitaph, too.” 

The lady who spoke first was young — somewhere 
in her early twenties. She had a face that com- 
bined sweetness, refinement, and intelligence in a 
very rare degree; and the young man who stood 
by her side looked, as he was, a little her senior. 
He had a fine, manly countenance — one you would 
have respected and trusted at once. 

“But, somehow,” continued Ellen Reynolds, “it 
seems to me that it might be better for the soul of 
Jerome Reynolds if part of his epitaph had never 
been written. 1 Christian philanthropist/ 1 public 
benefactor/ he might have been — true relative he 
never was, as three low graves, far away from this 
one, bear solemn witness. Norman — Elizabeth — 
mother — we might all be here to-day, a happy, 
unbroken family, if the man who lies under these 
green sods had done his duty to us. His money 
came too late to save Elizabeth — it was that school 
killed her; and it was the loss of Norman and 
Elizabeth that killed mother.” 


166 HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 

The words were suddenly checked here by a 
storm of tears and sobs, which shook the graceful 
young figure to and fro. The young man drew his 
arm around his sister. He was silent for a while, 
and his heart rose up for a moment in bitter accu- 
sation against the dead, who lay at his feet. At 
last he spoke: 

“ Ellen, he has gone where God, not we, shall 
judge him.” 

She looked up — the sweet lady through her 
tears. 

“ I know it, Harry ; and yet, when I stood to-day 
before that magnificent pile of buildings they called 
the Reynolds Library, and the crowds about us 
were making speeches, and doing us honor for his 
sake, I was thinking of my blighted childhood — 
of my brother’s bathed and broken youth — of my 
sister’s sweet and suffering girlhood — of my moth- 
er’s long years of toil and sorrow — thinking, too, 
of all the noble promise and possibilities of Nor- 
man’s manhood, and Elizabeth’s sweet, lost woman- 
hood; and standing there, I said to myself, sternly 
and bitterly — ‘ Jerome Reynolds, the money that 
laid the foundations of one of those buildings would 
have kept them all on earth to this day; and that 
lofty pile and those low graves stand up to-day to 
witness against you.’” 

“I said all this, too, Ellen, sweet sister; and 
then I remembered” — 

“What?” 


HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 167 

“That perhaps he and they had met together, 
and they would forgive him.” 

Her flushed face dropped into calm. 

“If they have forgiven him, so should we,” she 
murmured. 

“That is true, Ellen, and though the money 
came too late to save them, it has been full of good 
and blessing for us.” 

She looked up with a smile; and the smile of 
Ellen Reynolds was worth going far to see. 

“I thought of that yesterday, Harry, while you 
were delivering your oration at Commencement. 
0, Harry, these last years have been happy years 
for us!” 

“They have been happy years for the dead, too, 
darling sister, and they have what our mother said 
Norman had that night the fortune came — better 
riches than ours.” 

She smiled again. 

“0, Harry, your words comfort me!” 

“And we will be glad, not only for our own 
sakes and for theirs, that while we have enough 
of this world’s goods for our need and comfort, 
after much early suffering has taught us truly to 
appreciate and enjoy them, they are gone where 
they have the better, eternal riches.” 

There were no more words spoken. They both 
looked up a moment at the lofty granite monument, 
at whose foot slept all that was mortal of their 
uncle, Jerome Reynolds. 


168 HOW ONE WILL WAS MADE. 

The capitol glowed brightly over them in the 
sunset light, and all bitterness and indignation had 
faded from the eyes of Harry and Ellen Reynolds 
as they gazed on it. Then the lady took her 
brother’s arm, and the two went silent and serious 
out of the cemetery at Woodside. 

And how many among the dead and the living 
are there like this man, Jerome Reynolds, of whom 
I have written. How many who hoard and clutch 
their wealth to the end, and then leave it to endow 
colleges, and found asylums, and libraries, and all 
manner of high-sounding public institutions, while 
their own kindred may be secretly wearing down a 
life of suffering and toil into the grave, for want of 
a little of this wealth, hoarded in life, to buy a 
name after death! 

Ah, how many public benefactions are founded in 
private wrongs! How often he that is unjust in 
little, is generous in much! A man’s first duty — 
first charity, is to his own kindred, although neither 
of them ends there; and he who thoughtlessly, heart- 
lessly, willfully neglects his own relatives, will find 
that all splendid public donations and charities, 
which men praise and trumpet with sounding brass 
and tinkling cymbal, will not purchase for them the 
kingdom of heaven. 

“It is appointed unto men once to die, but after 
this the judgment !” 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


“Well, Mary, why don’t you tell him you 
won’t stand this treatment?” The voice was re- 
monstrative, almost vehement. It was quite evi- 
dent that the speaker was considerably stirred. 

“ There is no use, George. I have left nothing 
undone to alter this state of things; but I can not 
move Robert Grover; he seems to delight in 
making my life miserable.” The voice was not 
passionate, but weary and plaintive. 

“He’s a scamp!” This laconic statement was 
intensified by a strong blow, which sent a shiver 
through the small oval table by which the speaker 
sat. 

Mary, the wife of Robert Grover, did not seem 
startled at the opprobrium which inhered in the 
epithet bestowed upon her husband, and yet she did 
not look like a woman who was in any wise used to 
the hearing or the speaking of harsh words, as she 
sat rocking back and forth in her low chair, a few 
feet from her brother, with her head resting against 
the back. It was a daintily-poised and prettily- 
shaped head, with bright, abundant hair; and the 


170 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


face was a pretty one, too, with soft outlines, and 
sweet lips, and eyes pleasant to look within. I 
think a searching analysis might have 'penetrated to 
some wrong or want in the face which had its 
meaning in something beyond. In certain phases 
of feeling like the present there was a disquiet and 
disappointment about it which had its root in the 
character, and did not indicate a soul in harmony 
with true and Christian ideals of life. 

“Only to think, George, of my asking my hus- 
band for a new silk dress this morning — and I 
haven’t had one since last April — and what do you 
think he said?” 

“I can’t imagine, Mary; but I shouldn’t be sur- 
prised at any thing, after what I’ve heard.” 

“Well, he went off into a towering passion, and 
declared that he never saw a woman yet who had 
a particle of reason or common sense, and that it 
was absurd to talk to a man about silk dresses who 
was likely to fail before night, and he insisted that 
it would serve the whole race right if we had to 
come down to linsey-woolsey, and spin and weave it 
ourselves, as our grandmothers did before us.” 

George Humphreys leaned back in his chair and 
laughed outright — a laugh which was made up of 
indignation and amusement. Perhaps the latter 
triumphed at this moment. “That’s just like 
a man,” he said. “Get one of them provoked, and 
he ’s sure to go on after this fashion.” 

“It was any thing to me but a matter to laugh 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


171 


at,” subjoined Mrs. Grover, in tones which plainly- 
showed that her brother’s merriment at this junc- 
ture had hurt her. 

“0 now, don’t mind that, sis! It’s outrageous 
that you should be insulted in this fashion, and you 
sh’ an’t be any more.” 

“No, I don’t intend to,” answered Mary Grover, 
firmly- and quietly. “I ’ve made up my mind; these 
things have reached too terrible a pass for me to 
bear them any longer.” 

“Well, Mary, what are you going to do now?” 
asked the young man, with solicitude; for there 
was an ambiguous threat in his sister’s voice. 

“I am going to leave my husband, George Hum- 
phreys; I am going out into the world to toil with 
my hands for my daily bread, rather than submit 
any longer to his tyrannies and insults.” Her 
tones were raised to a higher key now, as though 
they would admit of neither argument nor contra- 
diction, and the flush on the cheeks confirmed the 
words. 

“ Why, Mary, has it come to this f” asked George 
Humphreys, shocked beyond further speech for the 
moment. 

“Yes, it has, George. You would not have your 
own and only sister stay here to drag^ out a life 
which is worse than death ;” and a great sob 
swelled the dainty throat over the snowy lace 
ruffling. 

“Ho, I wouldn’t, Mary, darling” — his fraternal 


172 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


sympathies quickening again. “ Only I did n’t know 
but something further might be done before you take 
such a step. It ’s never best to be rash, you know.” 

“I know it, George; but I have reflected on this 
subject for a long time, and I take the step de- 
liberately.” 

“I wish you had never seen that villain!” said 
George Humphreys, getting up and pacing to and 
fro the small, prettily-furnished sitting-room, where 
he and his sister were holding a conversation on 
which hung all the happiness or the misery of her 
future. 

‘*1 wish that I never had seen him” — and here 
the sob in the young wife’s throat burst in a gust 
of tears. “ 0, George, do you remember the dear 
old boy and girl days, when you and I were so 
happy together in the old home at Walpole, and 
how I used to sing ‘The Watcher,’ and ‘The Old 
Sexton ’ — papa’s favorite — every night after supper 
in the parlor, and how papa would pull me on his 
knee afterward, and finger my curls, and you and I 
would have a chase round the old hall? Those 
were happy days, George !” 

“Very happy days;” and the young man’s voice 
struggled a little before it conquered the words. 

“And do you remember further back still — the 
Autumn days, when you climbed the great pear- 
trees, and the yellow fruit came tumbling down on the 
grass, as I stood watching you with wonder while 
you called to me away up in the great boughs ?” 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


173 


“I remember it all, Mary;” and this time the 
voice of George Humphreys struggled harder than 
before, and he paused and stroked the bright hair 
of his sister. “Don’t cry, darling” — for the tears 
came in great jets, staining her cheeks. 

“And the times that you led me to school 
through the mulberry fields, and through the hick- 
ory grove, where we used to throw nuts at the shy 
squirrels? 0, George, I wish that I had never 
left the old home ! I wish I was the little girl that 
papa and you used to pet.” 

It was not strange that the heart of George Hum- 
phreys was melted within him, for it was a heart 
young, and brave, and manly; it was not strange 
that, as he listened to the sobbed-out words of his 
only sister, he did not consider that a youth of 
such fondness and indulgence as that she pictured 
would not be likely to discipline her ardent, im- 
pulsive nature for the inevitable trials of life, or 
nourish the best possibilities of her character. He 
forgot, as he looked on the fair, tearful face of his 
sister, that she had been petulant and exacting, 
and, with all her loving impulses, that she was 
irritable and unreasonable if ever so lightly crossed. 
George Humphreys only thought, with burning in- 
dignation, of the man who had taken to wife his 
beautiful sister, and broken her heart with unkind- 
ness and harshness, and his whole soul stirred with 
fresh anger toward the husband, and pity for the 
wife, as he lifted Mary from the chair, and seated 


174 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


her on the lounge, and, slipping his arm around 
her, said: “ There, don’t shed another tear, dar- 
ling ; you shall not live with this villain any longer. 
Come back to me ; I ’ll take tender care of you, as 
I did in the days before you were married. We ’ll 
go back and live in the old homestead, and no 
human being shall dare to find fault with you so 
long as you ’ve got a brother to shelter and defend 
you.” 

And Mary Grover' put her soft arms around her 
brother’s neck, and thanked him through her sobs. 
And it was settled then and there between the 
brother and sister that Mary should accompany 
George when he left the city, as business compelled 
him to do the next night. Mrs. Grover did not 
expect her husband home till the late evening train, 
and she and her brother would be several hours on 
the journey before he returned to his home and 
learned all he had lost. And a flush of triumph 
went over the young wife at the thought, for she 
knew that her husband would be utterly dismayed 
when he came to understand the decisive step to 
which his cruelty had driven her. 

“I hate scenes!” exclaimed George Humphreys, 
as he rose to go, for the night was growing fast, 
and he had promised to meet a friend at the St. 
Nicholas. “So it is lucky we shall avoid one, as 
the fellow happens to be absent. But I haven’t 
done with Bobert Grover yet, and one day he shall 
answer to me for his brutality to my sister.” 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


175 


Mary caught her brother s arm with a cry of 
terror. The thought of a meeting between the two 
men, knowing as she did the fiery spirit of both 
when exasperated, filled her with dread, and she 
fancied herself haunted by life with a fear that her 
brother or her husband might fall by the hand of 
the otner. 

“George,” said the white lips of Mary Grover, 
“promise me solemnly that you will never seek an 
interview with my husband so long as you live. 
Promise me this, or I can never leave his home 
for yours.” 

“Why, Mary, it is my duty” — 

She checked him, shivering and shuddering. 
“No, George, I foresee what the consequences 
would be only too well. Promise for my sake and 
my peace, George.” 

“Well, then, I promise, for I want you to be at 
rest, Mary. But it ’s hard to shut up my -mouth 
in this way.” This time it was shut up with fond 
kisses, and so George Humphreys went his way. 

It is useless to linger on the causes which had 
developed such unhappiness in the life of Bobert 
and Mary Grover. Both were greatly in the 
wrong, and each had somewhat to plead in exten- 
uation of his and her faults. Each had had a 
spoiled childhood, an indulged youth; each was 
exacting, and unconsciously and habitually selfish; 
and on the other side each was generous, warm- 
hearted, with most attractive and lovable qualities 


176 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


6f character. Marriage had been a keen disappoint- 
ment to both, for Eobert ana Mary Grover had 
been the most ardent of lovers, and the young hus- 
band and wife were appalled at the first disclosure 
of human frailties in the other. 

A little self-sacrifice, a yielding to each other’s 
wishes and tastes in the small details of every-day 
life, and the exercise of good common-sense, might 
have remedied all these things. But, alas ! per- 
sistent self-sacrifice in little things was something 
to which neither the young merchant or his wife 
were accustomed; and their judgment was blinded 
because their hearts were wrong! It is the old 
story. Things went from bad to worse. Each 
grew soured and indifferent; a habit of incessant 
fault-finding, of petty recrimination and retort de- 
veloped itself, and the married life which had com- 
menced three years before under such sweet auspices 
of youth, and hope, and love, was become to both 
sorrow and bitterness, and neither could see that the 
remedy for the great wrong lay in his or her soul. 

The road between New York and Philadelphia 
had been partially blocked up by the recent heavy 
fall of snow, and the ride was a slow and tedious 
one for all the travelers on the train that day. 

Eobert Grover soon exhausted the morning paper, 
which seemed a particularly-sterile one, and then 
he looked out of the window awhile, as the cars 
toiled painfully along; but he only saw the dead 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


177 


woolens of Winter drawn level over the face of the 
earth. And as he sat there, with nothing especial 
to fix his attention, the words which he had spoken 
to Mary, his wife, that morning, came hack to his 
memory. They did sound rather harsh and severe 
now, and he winced a little under them. 

“The truth is,” thought the young merchant, 
settling his graceful limbs on the seat, for the cars 
were not crowded that morning, “I s’pose I did go 
a little too far; but she must come at me in just 
the *wrong time, when I was bothered to death by 
that letter, telling me there was no help for it — I 
must start right off to-day for Philadelphia, or I ’d 
lose every dollar that house was owing me, for it 
would be down before the week was out. I wonder 
if there ever was a woman, from Eve downward, 
who had the least idea of the bother and worry of 
a man’s business, or who would n’t attack him at 
the very moment when he was head over heels in 
trouble, and of course then he’s sure to say the 
very worst thing he can!” 

And then the face of his wife came back to him 
as he had parted from it, with its white, still look, 
and the strange, settled expression of the lips, as 
though she had made some deadly resolve within 
herself; and he remembered how her gaze had fol- 
lowed him, steady and defiant, as he left the room. 
He had the last word, too, which Was not often 
the case. Robert Grover moved uneasily; the still, 
pale face troubled him more thaa any flush of 


178 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


rage — the silence more than any angry recrimina- 
tion would have done. 

“I suppose,” he mused, “ Mary ’ll sit at home 
to-day, and brood over what I 've said, and think 
I 'm the greatest brute in existence ! Ah, well ! I 
wonder if marriage proves the failure in ninety- 
nine cases out of a hundred that ours has! It's 
evident enough that Mary and I were n't intended 
for each other! And yet who would have believed, 
three years ago, that it would have come to this !” 

And the young man sighed heavily. And then 
his thoughts drifted off to the time beyond those 
three years, and he saw Mary Humphreys in all 
the sweetness and grace which had won him to love 
her. What a pretty, charming, loving creature she 
was! half child, half woman! How beautiful she 
was then! how he used to worship her! And the 
old radiant days of their betrothal marched in shin- 
ing array before his memory, and smiled on him, 
and then they softly vanished away to make room 
for one day fairer, standing alone, crowned and 
glorious, the brightest day of his life. He saw 
Mary as she was that day, looking to him like an 
angel in the silver cloud of her white laces, with 
the damask roses widening on her soft cheeks, and 
the sweet quiver of her lips ! 

What a happy bridegroom he was! How radi- 
ant before them seemed to open their future ! And 
with the sweet face of his newly-made wife stand- 
ing before him, the young merchant closed his eyes 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


179 


and dropped into a light slumber, and the face fol- 
lowed him. But now it was farther off, and a 
great, reproachful sadness seemed to drift up into 
the dark eyes and over the smiling lips. It was 
turned toward him, but there seemed an invisi- 
ble, intangible barrier betwixt them. Mary seemed 
slowly receding from his gaze, with the reproachful 
sorrow in her face. He stretched out his arms, 
and called her in agony to return; but she shook 
her head mournfully, and the sweet, sorrowful face 
grew fainter and fainter, and in his alarm and anx- 
iety the traveler stirred uneasily, and awoke. 

The white, dazzling level lay before him, and the 
car wheels were painfully toiling their long way to 
Philadelphia. But the vision in his dream haunted 
the soul of Bobert Grover, and in his stirred and 
| softened mood he saw many things in a new light. 
He did not now reproach Mary for her share of 
the sorrow and bitterness of their wedded life; he 
took great blame to himself. He saw how in many 
things he had erred, how he had not been tender, 
pitiful, gentle to her youth and inexperience, as he 
should have been. He saw that many times he 
had been harsh, authoritative, peremptory with her, 
when explanation and forbearance might have ac- 
complished all that he desired. He remembered 
the home from which he had taken her, the loving 
atmosphere which had surrounded her, the doting 
fondness which never saw fault or blame in her; 
and as his roused conscience brought before the 


180 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


man scene after scene in which he had been unkind, 
or overbearing, or too little thoughtful of his wife's 
happiness, too little indulgent of her wishes, the 
heart of Eobert Grover smote him, and then it 
yearned toward his wife as it had not yearned for 
years, and he solemnly resolved, with the help of 
God, that his future should not be like his past, 
that he would do what he could, by gentleness and 
forbearance, to win back something of the old, lost 
tenderness, and make their married life somewhat 
of all their betrothal had promised. He would 
even acknowledge the wrong which he had done, 
though it cost him something of a struggle to re- 
solve on this, and would try and see if he could not 
prevail upon Mary to join him in his purpose. 

“I’ll find her one of the prettiest dresses in 
Philadelphia, let it cost what it may!” murmured 
Eobert Grover to himself. And the wind which 
beat at the window did not make that sudden 
dampness in his eyes! 

“Well, every thing’s done now!” exclaimed Mrs. 
Grover to herself, as she entered her parlor, and 
sat down in a crimson velvet chair, and looked up 
the long vista of the luxurious room. And as she 
sat there a strange feeling of soberness and dread 
came over her. She had been in a state of inward 
excitability, though she had controlled herself well 
during the last several hours. 

She had packed her trunks so quietly that neither 
the cook nor the chamber-maid suspected her in- 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


181 


tended departure, and she had written, with a hand 
which did not falter, her last letter to her husband, 
explaining, but without any passionate reproaches, 

| the causes of her departure from his roof, and her 
conviction, founded on the unhappy experience of 
the past three years, that a separation was the only 
course which would insure the peace of either, and 
that she was promoting his happiness as much as 
her own in leaving him. 

And now there was nothing more for Mrs. Grover 
to do, except to await the arrival of her brother. 
She had now no excitement, no outward activity to 
sustain her; she would only sit still and look 
straight in the face all the meaning and significance 
of the step she was about to take. Her gaze wan- 
dered, with a little touch of regret, about her 
parlor, as she remembered that in another hour she 
would be its mistress no longer. 

Every thing there had a familiar look, and she 
had taken pride and pleasure in the selection of 
every piece of furniture. And then she began to 
wonder what her husband s feelings would be on en- 
tering the house and finding her absent, and with 
what sort of emotions he would read the letter 
on the dressing-table, which would explain all. 
Would anger or regret predominate in his heart? 
She was very certain that the possibility of her 
taking such a step as the one she was resolved on 
had never occurred to him, although each had some- 
times threatened to leave the other in moments of 


182 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


passion. And Mrs. Grover wondered what course 
her husband would take in the matter. Would he 
seek to win her back? If he should come to her, 
and acknowledge all the great wrong he had done 
to her, and promise that the future should atone for 
the past, and she should find, after all, that he 
really did love her, perhaps — she could not tell — 
she might be prevailed on to return to him. But 
it was not likely that Robert Grover, with all his 
pride, would do any thing of that kind. Probably 
he would come home to his lonely dinner with just 
as good an appetite as ever, and she did not believe 
that the absence of a face which had sat so long at 
the head of his table would seriously impair his 
relish for his coffee and his roast beef. In a little 
while, too, he would doubtless forget her; and after 
obtaining a divorce for desertion, he would find 
some other woman whose charms and graces — But 
here Mary Grover sprang suddenly to her feet and 
put out her hands as though she would avert some 
blow. She could not understand that sharp pain 
which pierced her heart ; but her thoughts instinct- 
ively turned away from the path which they were 
pursuing. 

Mrs. Grover had deceived herself with those 
specious sophistries of the heart which always blind 
our moral vision. She really believed that she was 
doing right In thus leaving her husband, and she 
had no doubt that he was entirely responsible 
for all the sorrow and disappointment of their 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


183 


married life, and that to a husband who had been 
all that her heart craved she would have been the 
most loving and devoted of wives, going for his 
sake to prison or to death. Still, as she walked up 
and down her room — for she did not resume her 
seat again — her memory crept over the last three 
years, and for the first time she could recall an oc- 
casional instance of passion or petulance on her part, 
of which her conscience would not quite acquit her. 
She had to admit before that tribunal that she had 
not always been as forbearing or as thoughtful as 
was possible; but then Robert had such a stinging, 
aggravating way of talking that nobody but a 
saint or an angel could stand it. And yet who 
could have believed the married life to which she 
looked forward three years ago with such hope and 
faith would have ended like this! How fair and 
sweet on the vines of the future blossomed the days 
of her life, beautiful with youth, fragrant with ten- 
derness! Alas! alas! for the withered flowers, for 
the blasted fruits ! Alas ! alas ! for all the hope and 
joy of Mary Grover s life ! 

“0, if Robert Grover had only been a different 
man, a better husband, it need never have come to 
this !” She put her hands up to her eyes, for the 
tears that blinded them were wrung from her 
heart, and she could not see, walking up and down 
her parlor. She dashed the drops aside and sat 
down, for she was trembling in every limb. She had 
heard the front door open; her brother had come 


184 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


earlier or the hours had gone faster than she ex- 
pected. He enters the sitting-room, returns in a 
moment, crosses the hall; the door opens, and Bob- 
ert Grover stands in the parlor ! 

Mrs. Grover grew very white, a little, half- 
smothered exclamation broke from her lips. 

“Are you so surprised to see me, Mary?” asked 
the young man, as he approached his wife. “What 
makes you look so pale?” 

“I don’t know, Kobert,” stammered the agitated 
woman. 

The merchant sat down by the side of his wife, 
and looked at her fair face with a new tenderness 
in his eyes. “The truth is, Mary, I got troubled 
about you, and took the morning train for that very 
reason.” 

“What does it mean?” asked Mary Grover, lift- 
ing her hand to her forehead, and making this in- 
quiry more of herself than of her husband, for the 
woman was half-bewildered. 

He could not suspect half the ground that this 
question covered; but, interpreting it according to 
his own knowledge, he supposed that Mary was as- 
tonished at the unusual tenderness in his manner; 
and, slipping his arm about her waist, he said: “It 
means, Mary, that I ’ve been thinking many wise 
and tender thoughts of you since I ’ve been away, 
and” — there was a little pause and a little strug- 
gle, for it cost the spirit of Bobert Grover some- 
thing to say it, but he did — “I ’ve felt that I was 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


185 


harsh and unjust the morning before I left. I was 
bothered with my business, and did n't know what 
I was saying. But, Mary, I 've made a solemn 
resolution that I will try to be to you somewhat of 
all that I promised more than three years ago. I 
mean to be gentle, more tender, forbearing for your 
sake; and for mine will you not try, my little wife, 
to be better to me, more forgetful of my faults, less 
irritating to my temper, and won’t this tempt you 
a little?” 

He took up a small roll on one side of him, tore 
open a corner of it, and tossed it into Mary’s lap. 
The torn wrapper discovered an exquisite brocade, 
the dark-green ground-work scattered with crimson 
; buds. 

Mary Grover glanced at it; then she covered her 
face with her hands, and a great storm of sobs 
shook her soul to its center. Robert Grover was 
greatly moved; he knew those tears were not tears 
of passion or pride, but that they flowed sweet and 
fresh from a fountain which had long been sealed in 
the heart of his wife. 

He drew her to his heart, he soothed her with 
broken words and tender caresses, and when the 
sobs grew loud at last, he told of all that had been 
in his heart and thoughts since he left her. At last 
Mary lifted her lips softly to his cheek, and he 
knew that the kiss which she left there was the 
seal of a new and better covenant betwixt her and 
her husband. Just then the front door opened 


186 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


sharply, rapid feet hurried through the hall, and a 
loud voice summoned Mary. 

“Why, that’s your brother George! I didn’t 
know that he was in town!” exclaimed Eobert 
Grover. 

Before Mary could answer, her brother had 
opened the parlor door. No wonder that he stood 
still, his face revealing nothing of his thoughts, 
except their utter amazement, as he stood still, 
looking on the two who sat there. 

Eobert Grover rose and gave his hand to his 
brother-in-law warmly. “ George, old fellow, I ’m 
glad to see you. Walk in.” 

George responded with his hand, scarcely con- 
scious of what he was doing, for his eyes were 
fastened on his sister. “ I have n’t but ten minutes 
to stay, for I must take the next train north. 
Mary, I want to see you a moment.” 

“ 0, I ’ll leave, George. I want to get on a 
dressing-gown,” added Eobert Grover, good-natur- 
edly; for he was too much engrossed with his own 
feelings to detect any peculiarity in his brother-in- 
law’s manner, and merely supposed that he had 
some private matter of his own to communicate to 
his sister. 

“Now, Mary, I should like to know what all 
this means?” exclaimed George Humphreys, turn- 
ing upon his sister as soon as her husband went 
out and the door closed. “Are you going off as 
you agreed with me?” 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 187 

“No, George; I've seen things in a differenr 
light.” 

“A pretty affair this is! I never knew the 
woman yet who held to the same opinion twenty- 
four hours!” 

Now, George Humphreys was greatly mistaken 
here; but men have a singular habit of attributing 
to the whole of our sex the faults which belong to 
the particular ones with whom they occupy intimate 
relations. 

And then Mary Grover told her astonished, half- 
skeptical brother of much which had transpired in 
her interview with her husband, and, taking part 
of the blame to herself, affirmed her determination 
to be a better woman and wife in the future. 

“It looks odd enough all round,” was the young 
man's comment on her conclusion. “ In short, it 's 
beyond my depth ; but if you 're satisfied, I s’pose 
I ought to be. Any how, it 's time for me to be 
off, and it seems that I must go without your 
company.” 

“Dear George” — and Mary put her soft arms 
about her brother's neck, and kissed him. “You 
will say good-by to Eobert first?” 

The kiss was warmly returned, and the request 
complied with. The two young men parted cord- 
ially, although George Humphreys did mutter to 
himself as he brushed down the steps: “I wonder 
if that 's always the way with married folks — quar- 
rel and make up after this fashion! When Ellen — 


188 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


bless her heart! — belongs to me, we’ll have a dif- 
ferent life, I ’ll warrant.” 

Mary Grover hurried up stairs with a fear at 
her heart that her husband might have discovered 
the letter on the table. But she found it lying 
there still unopened, and with a little cry of joy she 
grasped it, and the next moment it flashed a red 
torch upon her eyes and dropped its glowing flakes 
among the red coals in the grate. 

That night Mary Grover resolved that she would 
not be outdone in generous confession and acknowl- 
edgment by her husband; and so, sitting down on 
an ottoman at his feet, and leaning her cheek in the 
old, caressing way on his knee, she told him of the 
purpose to leave him which had taken possession of 
her, and whose consummation was only prevented 
by his return. She did not stop here ; she acknowl- 
edged, with tears of shame and sorrow, her own 
share in all the wrong of the past, and her resolve 
to be in future the loyal and the loving wife which 
her marriage vows implied. 

And Robert Grover drew his young wife to his 
heart, and the fond kiss on her lips was the seal of 
his forgiveness. And kneeling down for the first 
time together, they prayed for help and strength to 
enter on their new life with hearts taught by the 
past, and that each might learn the habit and the 
joy of self-sacrifice for the sake of the other; and 
they rose up together better man and woman. And 


AFTER THREE YEARS. 


189 


a new life grew afterward, not without many strug- 
gles and prayers, not without much weakness, and 
temptation, and failure, as all human growth and 
good must; but the true purpose was never lost 
sight of, the wrong was always acknowledged and 
repented of, and the blossoms, strung like thick 
pearls on the vines, promise sweet and fragrant 
clusters for the coming years of the life of Mary 
and Robert Grover. 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 


“And now, Mark, I want to show you my new 
pink dress. Is n’t it a beauty ?” 

It was just after, supper, and I couldn’t wait to 
wash up the tea-dishes before I displayed my new 
purchase to my husband. 

He had had a hard day’s work, building a stone 
fence around the south pasture lot, which he has 
concluded to plow up this Spring, and he seated 
himself by the open window and watched me with 
his pleased smile as I snapped the cord and tore off 
the wrappings, and the delicate folds rolled down 
like a heap of white and pink clouds which I have 
seen in Winter just after the sun has got behind 
the mountain. Mark looked at the fabric with that 
half-curious, half-incompetent gaze, with which I 
have often observed men regard some article of 
feminine apparel upon which they were called to 
pass judgment. 

He took a corner of the calico and rubbed it 
betwixt his thumb and fore-finger, just as I have 
seen him try a fresh specimen of grass seed. 

“It ’s a pretty thing, Eunice. It pleases me,” 

190 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 191 

and I knew that Mark Truman meant every word 
that he said. 

“It was two shillings a yard/’ I went on to say. 
“Bather expensive for poor folks like us; hut it’s 
real French, and it ’ll wash and wear like iron, you 
know, and it is n’t the best economy always to get 
the cheapest things. Then I wanted something to 
dress up in afternoons, and pink always was my 
color, don’t you remember, Mark?” 

“To be sure I do. You had on a pink muslin 
when I saw you for the first time at the picnic, 
and I have n’t forgotten what I thought when I set 
my eyes on you.” 

“What was it, Mark? do tell me” — shaking out 
the calico as I held it before me, its snowy ground 
flushed all over with pink blossoms. 

“Well,” I said to myself, “Mark Truman, that’s 
just the sweetest face you ever laid your eyes on in 
this world; but I hadn’t any idea then that it 
would one day be the most precious piece of prop- 
erty a man ever carried in his heart!” 

“0, Mark, I do believe you are a flatterer!” but 
I knew the words were not true while I spoke 
them. 

He put his strong arms about me and said, “If 
I was one, Eunice, I should praise you oftener than 
I do, just for the pleasure of seeing the blushes 
come and go in your cheeks. They are like the 
buds on your new dress this minute.” 

“I ’m so glad you like it, Mark,” as I folded up 


192 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 


the pattern. “I shall fit it myself next week. It’s 
such a saving to be able to fit one’s own dresses, 
and then aunt Comfort used to say I had a won- 
derful tact for dress-making.” 

“ 1 wonder what she has n’t got a tact for, except 
for making a good matrimonial bargain !” 

“What do you mean, Mark?” — laying down the 
bundle, and looking in his face, for there was just 
the faintest shadow of doubt as well as of mirth in 
my husband’s tones. 

“It means, I don’t like, Eunice, to think how 
much better off you might have been than you are 
now — a poor, hard-working farmer's wife, obliged to 
stretch every dollar to the utmost, when you might 
have been in such different circumstances this very 
hour.” 

I looked at my husband a moment after he had 
done speaking. I suppose he is not a handsome 
man; aunt Comfort said nobody would ever think 
of calling him that. I know his face is sun-browned 
and somewhat weather-beaten; but it all looks good 
to me, any how, and nobody could search into the 
deep-gray eyes without finding the kindly expres- 
sion hidden there; and the open, generous smile 
that beams over the sun-browned face is kindled 
away down in the deep, warm heart of Mark Tru- 
man. 

“What is the matter, my little girl?” asked my 
husband, as I stood still looking at him, my 
thoughts full of these things. “Are n’t you sorry 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 193 

that Eunice Webber didn’t do a little better for 
herself?” 

“ Are. n’t you ashamed, Mark Truman, to ask me 
such a question? As if I wasn’t glad every hour 
of my life to think I 've got a true, good, honest 
man, whom I could trust away down to the quick 
and marrow of his heart! And as for the work, 
I’ve got a willing spirit and strong hands to make 
j it easy;^and alLX ^have to say this nig ht , M^ rk 
Truman, is, t hat if every wife in this world is as 
well off as I am. _ she_[s reason to than k God and 
be a happy woman!”/ 

“I like to hear you speak — I like to see you 
look like that, Eunice !” said my husband, as he 
took my hands in his strong, hard ones, and there 
beamed a light out of the deep-gray eyes which was 
like the pleasant May sunshine dropping suddenly 
upon me. 

“Well, Mark, you know I mean it all; and I ’ve 
lived long enough, and had trouble enough, to know 
that when a woman gets a good, strong, tender 
heart to lean on through all her life, she 's got the 
best thing which this world can give her. And I 
wouldn’t exchange you, Mark Truman, for any 
man in the whole world, no matter if he would 
place me in a palace and surround my life with the 
splendor of a queen.” 

And these words set Mark Truman’s heart at 
rest, for I know that it remembers sometimes its 
old rival, Kufus Patterson. 

J 3 


194 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 


And Mark thinks — which is a great mistake — 
that I was better fitted for a merchant’s wife than 
a farmer’s; that if I had chosen the former, I need 
never have soiled my hands with labor; for Bufus 
Patterson, if he was not rich, was proud and ambi- 
tious enough to make a lady of his wife. 

But notwithstanding the merchant’s handsome 
face and smart manners, I knew who had the best, 
truest heart — yes, I knew ! 

I found the newspaper for Mark, and set about 
washing up my tea-dishes, for it was growing dark. 
There was so much warmth and gladness about my 
heart that evening, that, as I wiped the cups and 
saucers, and went back and forth from my pantry to 
the table, I kept humming snatches of old tunes; 
but that is a habit of mine when I am happy, and 
I wondered if there was another woman quite so 
much so, in -the whole world, as I, Eunice Webber 
Truman ! 

I love my little house so — every corner and 
crevice of it ! I go outdoors sometimes and stand 
on the little grass-plot in front, and say to myself, 
“ That’s all yours, Eunice, every bit of it!” 

It ’s a little cottage with white window-blinds and 
seven small, pleasant, airy rooms. The whole cost 
just a thousand dollars, and we’ve paid every 
dollar of this. Mark earned half, and there was 
five hundred came to me when the old homestead 
was sold after aunt Comfort’s death. 

I furnished the little house myself from garret to 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 


195 


cellar, and that cost three hundred more, which I 
laid by during the two years that I taught the 
district school. 

I thank God for my brave, willing heart, that 
always turns to the light as the l eaves ancL -tha 
flowers do. Ijb hank him for my strong, healthful 
you th; f or my ha pp y, ha ppy homej and, aboyo-all, 
I than k him for my jear husband^ .Ma rk Truman ! 

He ’s only been this for three months, though 
it seems a great while longer — short as the days 
are, filled with cheese-pressing, and butter-churn- 
ing, and all 'the care of housekeeping which has 
fallen on me; for, of course, we can’t afford to keep 
a girl ; but, dear me ! as I tell Mark, one would 
only be in the way, and I never was quite so well 
in my life as now. It’s evident that housework 
agrees with me. 

Just as I was folding the table-cloth there was 
a rap at the door, and Paul walked in. My heart 
bounded, as it always cloes, with my first glance at 
the delicate face that grows handsomer every day. 

“0, dear, why didn’t you come an hour earlier? 
We’ve had our first dish of strawberries for tea, 
and I did n’t enjoy them half so much, thinking of 
you!” I exclaimed, as soon as we had exchanged 
kisses, and Paul had shaken hands with his brother- 
in-law. 

“Never mind the berries, sis; I’ll take the will 
for the deed,” throwing himself into an arm-chair 
with a faint smile which suited the weary tones. 


196 THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 

“ Paul, something is the matter with you ! What 
has happened?” 

He looked up at me a wistful, half-introverted, 
half-hopeless look, that went right to the quick of 
my heart. I was at his side in a moment, brushing 
back the thick, crisp locks of hair, with the brown 
lights adrift among the shadows. 

“Paul, darling, tell your sister what it is that 
troubles you!” 

“Yes, Paul, let us have it!” added Mark, leaning 
forward on the table. 

Then it came in a few words. 

“Uncle Joshua has been angry again. He’s 
sworn to-night that he’ll bind me out to a trade 
before a week is over.” 

“ What kind of a trade, Paul ?” 

“A joiner’s.” 

“ It ’s a burning shame ! He shall never do it !” 
I exclaimed, flushing into a great anger, as I looked 
at the delicate boy in nowise fitted for such labor. 

“I do n’t think he will, for I shall probably run 
away. It ’s pretty hard to go to sea, but it will be 
getting out of his sight for the next four years.” 

“And out of ours too — 0 Paul!” 

Something' trembled over his face which struck 
the unusual flush out of it. 

“That is the toughest part of it, Eunice !” he said. 

“I can’t — I won’t let you go, Paul!” throwing 
my arm around him. “Mark, can’t you advise — 
can’t you do something to help us ?” 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 197 

“Don’t get excited, Eunice. Sit down calmly 
now, and let us first get at the true facts of the 
case. Go on, Paul.” 

And Paul told us the whole story. Uncle Joshua’s 
conduct was in keeping with his whole course toward 
the child of his dead brother. 

It appears that he wants to keep a “chore-boy” 
in place of Paul, who he has at last discovered is 
not strong enough for hard farm-work; so he has 
concluded to bind him out to a trade, and with the 
hundred dollars which he will receive yearly for his 
board, he can keep a “raw hand” on the farm. 

The whole thing was an outrage. Paul’s tastes 
and feelings in the matter were never once con- 
sulted; but uncle Joshua disclosed his intentions in 
his blunt, coarse manner, after supper. Paul was 
overwhelmed with surprise and indignation, and 
a good many angry words passed betwixt the uncle 
and nephew. 

For once, Paul forgot his uncle’s gray hairs and 
his own youth, and defied him to do his worst, and 
hurled bitter reproaches against him for all the 
long wrong and cruelty he had suffered at his 
hands. 

The old man was stung into a white heat of 
passion; he shook his clenched hand in his neph- 
ew’s face, and swore a fearful oath that the boy 
was in his power, and would be till he was of age, 
and he would make him feel it too, and do with 
him just as it suited his pleasure. 


198 


THE HEAET OF MAEK TEUMAN. 


“And at last I came off and left him in the 
midst of his rage, and as I turned the corner of 
the road, and the river lay bright and cool in the 
distance, my heart ached so that I wished it was 
lying still and cold under the waters, and then 
there came over me the thought of you, Eunice!" 
so Paul concluded his story. 

I was sobbing very hard. Mark was walking up 
and down the room with a red flush in the center 
of his brown cheek; at last he spoke. 

“Paul, you shall not stand this abuse any longer!” 

“0, Mark, I bless you for those words in the 
name of that boy’s dead father and mother!” I 
broke down here, for the. memory of my mother’s 
last look came over me as she placed her thin hand 
on his curly head and the whisper went out on her 
last breath, “Eunice, take care of little Paul!” 

And she left with Paul her eyes and her smile; 
and left more than these — the sensitive, thought- 
ful spirit, the generous, loving nature, to which 
coarseness and harshness are exquisite torture. 

It does not seem seven years since the old pas- 
tor’s voice read over my mother .the burial service 
of those who die in the Lord. Paul was only ten 
then, and there was no one to take the motherless 
boy but his dead father’s elder brother, Joshua 
Webber. 

He is a coarse, stern, harsh man, whose greed 
of gold has eaten out every better instinct of his 
nature. His wife is an ignorant, narrow-minded, 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 199 

toilsome woman; and the four boys are like their 
parents. 

It cost me many sleepless nights, many bitter 
tears, before I could accept the ungracious offer of 
my uncle, "and send his delicate, sensitive nephew 
into so ungenial an atmosphere. Their natures and 
Paul’s are utterly antipathetic, and each can not 
comprehend the other. 

But what could I do? foor aunt Comfort was 
ah invalid who sadly needed my care, and her 
small pension could not possibly be expended so 
as to include another in her expenses. 

Poor Paul! I have done all that lay in my 
power to throw some bright colors over the som- 
ber years of his boyhood, but it ’s been hard enough. 
But the truth is, he was “cut out” — made for a 
scholar; his greatest delight is in books, and it is 
amazing, with his small opportunities, that he has 
taken the stand which he does in his classes. I 
know the one great hope and aspiration of his life 
is to obtain an education, and this desire his uncle 
would only meet with rude contempt and derision. 
He has always cherished an ill-concealed spite 
toward Paul, because he was not like his own 
coarse, sturdy sons, and each year my brother’s 
life has grown more intolerable, and the thought 
of him, has been the one shadow, darkening over 
all the joy of my newly- wedded life; for I love the 
boy committed to my care, with a yearning tender- 
ness which my lips can never find words to utter. 


200 THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 

“My darling, my beautiful boy!” I said, and tbo 
tears went faster down my cheeks than the broken 
words did from my lips. “Uncle Joshua will find 
that his power has come to an end at last. You 
shall never go back to him; I will never see you 
bound out to a trade; he knows you haven’t the 
strength for it.” 

“Quiet, quiet, my little girl; it never does any 
good to get excited!” troke in the round, cheerful 
tones of my husband. For once they jarred along 
my mood. 

“Well, Mark Truman, if you can stand still, and 
see Paul abused after this fashion, it ’s more than 
I can.” 

“You sha’ n’t have to 1 stand’ it, Eunice; but 
what I want just now, is to look the matter square 
in the face, and see what can be done. Now, Paul, 
speak for yourself. If you had your choice, what 
sort of a life would you carve out for yourself?” 

Paul leaned back in his chair, and paused a little. 
The moon was just opening her white vase of silver 
through the broken clouds, and the still, sweet light 
came into the room, and filled it with white calm, 
and Paul’s deep eyes grew luminous, and his face 
was radiant when he spoke. 

“What I want, Mark — Eunice, is an education. 
For this my soul hungers and thirsts night and 
day; for this I am willing to sacrifice any thing — 
endure any thing. I feel each day, more and more, 
the stirring of new faculties, the kindling of new 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 


201 


aspirations within me; and they are not young 
dreams and fancies. I ’m willing to work beyond 
my strength — willing to do any thing — so that 
beyond I can see the one great hope of my life 
open up to me — the way to obtain an education.” 

“You shall have it, Paul!” I cried; “you shall 
have it!” and then a little voice rose up in my 
heart, and said — “How?” 

But Marks tones reassured me — the calm, steady 
tones, which always carry hope and conviction with 
them, falling pleasantly through the stillness. 

“Well, Paul, we’ll think this all over, and see 
what can be done. One thing I 'm resolved on, 
you sha’ n’t go to that trade, though it may be 
better for you to return to your uncle’s to-night, so 
he will not suspect we ’ve been laying any plans to 
circumvent him. Be a brave boy, Paul, and trust 
in God.” 

My brother took hope from my husband’s words; 
so did I. And, after Paul had gone, we sat up a 
long time, talking over this matter. 

“It’s very evident, Mark,*” I said, “that Paul 
was n’t cut out for hard work. Hot that I think a 
little tough experience does any one’s youth any 
harm. But you see how it is — he was born to be 
a scholar.” 

“I see — I see,” said Mark, pinching my cheek. 

“Well, what are we to do about it?” 

“ There ’s the rub, Eunice. Paul would make but 
a little better farmer than he would mechanic, and 


202 THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 

if he comes here, as I am resolved he shall, he 
ought not to waste several of the brightest years of 
his youth working on the farm.” 

“0, how I wish I was rich!” 

“What would you do then?” 

“Send Paul to college.” 

“ It ’s hard to be poor, sometimes, for others’ 
sakes more than our own,” said Mark, with the 
faintest breath of a sigh. 

“Well, Mark, he must come here and live with 
us, and work enough to pay for his board; for Paul 
is very proud, and would not be dependent on any 
one. Then he can 4 study here till he can do 
better.” 

“That strikes me as the best plan just now,” said 
Mark, getting up and closing the window, for the 
night was wearing late, and its old illuminated 
missal, the sky, was shining with a thick engraving 
of stars. 

“But uncle Joshua will never give up Paul so 
long as he thinks he can make a sixpence out of 
him. Love of money* has made his heart harder 
than a nether millstone.” 

“I know that, Eunice; but I think I can manage 
that; and if it comes to the worst, the law will 
reach him in this matter, for he has no legal claims 
on his brother’s son; none, at least, that can not be 
set aside.” And once more Mark’s words gave me 
courage. 

The next morning I had gone out to search in 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 203 

the barn for some fresh eggs. It was a beautiful 
Summer’s morning, but the tender smile of the sky, 
and the rejoicing of the earth beneath it, could not 
remove the shadow from my heart; for the thought 
: of Paul lay heavy upon it. # * 

After a long search, I found half a dozen eggs, 
j and I sat down a moment, at the foot of a great pile 
| of hay, in one corner of the barn; and I watched 
the sunbeams quiver and flash, like the golden wings 
of forest birds, along the old brown rafters of the 
! barn, transforming all their homeliness into strange 
; grace and beauty, just as some good, loving, self- 
sacrificing deed will transform the homeliest face 
\ into beauty and sanctity. 

And then my thoughts leaped off to Paul, and to 
i the hard, harsh heart of his uncle, which is just 
like the old barn, in a dark, rainy day — cold, and 
bare, and gloomy, with no flicker of sunshine along 
the blackened rafters, and away off in the dark 
corners. And then I thought of the hard, toilsome 
years, which rose up before Mark and me, before 
we could pay for our farm. 

Three thousand dollars ! It would be long before 
we could raise that, though Mark got the land at a 
great bargain, and there was no doubt but it would 
be worth six thousand in ten years under his care- 
ful cultivation; but we can not, with the utmost 
economy, clear more than a couple of hundred a 
year from the land, after the interest on the money 
is paid; and somehow my heart sank terribly, as I 


204 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 


thought of Paul, on one hand, with his long craving 
for knowledge, his sensitive, high-spirited nature, 
constantly galled, and half crushed by contact with 
his mean and sordid relatives; and on the other 
hand, I thought of the long path of ceaseless toil 
and labor which Mark and I must walk together. 

I don't know when the tears came, but I found 
them storming down on my hands, and then there 
came a thought which was like a great shaft of 
light through the darkness of my soul. I put aside 
my basket of eggs, and kneeled down there in the 
old barn, and carried Mark, and Paul, and my own 
weak, overburdened spirit to the Great Heart which 
held us all in the chambers of its mighty tender- 
ness; and when I rose up the bitterness was gone. 

“Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I 
may continually resort." 

“Eunice! Eunice!" 

I had not left the barn when the well-known 
call hurried along the sweet morning air, and I 
hastened up to the house. Mark met me at the 
kitchen door. 

“Why, I’d no idea it was lunch-time yet!" 

“It isn’t, Eunice. I’m half an hour too early; 
but John ’s just been to the office, and brought me 
back this letter for you. It’s in such a hurried, 
business hand, that I thought it might be some- 
thing important, and hastened home with it.” 

I took the letter from my husband’s hand in si- 
lent wonder. The bold, scrawling characters were 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 205 

entirely strange to me; and even a letter is quite 
an event in my life, as I have only a couple of oc- 
casional correspondents in the world. 

“ Break the seal/’ said my husband, as I threw 
my sun-bonnet on a chair. 

I was not long in doing this, and Mark leaned 
over me as I read the letter. It informed me, 
briefly, that Ezra Northrop, my grandmothers 
brother, on my mother’s side, had died suddenly, 
a month ago, being eighty-five years of age; and 
that in his will he had bequeathed me a thousand 
| dollars, because I had borne, at his request, the 
name of his dearly-beloved sister, Eunice Northrop; 
and the letter was signed by the executor of my 
uncle’s will. 

“ 0, Mark, can it really be true ?” I said, sinking 
down into a chair, while the letter shook in my 
hands. 

“ There ’s no doubt of it, darling.” 

“ God must have sent it to us, Mark.” 

“And we will take it from him most thankfully.” 

“And now you can pay off a third of the farm. 
0, Mark, what a great burden it will lift off our 
shoulders !” 

Mark answered my words with a responsive 
smile of gladness ; and then a second thought came 
into his face which sobered the smile. 

“ What is it, Mark ?” 

“Where’s Paul, Eunice? It isn’t fair that we 
should have all the benefit of this.” 


206 1 THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 

I had forgotten him for a moment. I think the 
clock ticked away five minutes before we spoke 
again; and then looking into each other's eyes, we 
knew that the same thoughts had been busy with 
both. 

“Mark, do you think it is best so?" I stam- 
mered. 

“If you do, Eunice. We shall have to work 
harder and longer; but we can do it for Paul's 
sake.” 

“And this money will set him straight on the 
way to college?” 

“0, yes; the road will be clear enough then. 
He can have the interest of this money for the next 
year, which will pay Parson Adams for fitting him 
for college ; and he can be ready to enter in a year 
from next Fall. And after he is there, he can 
teach, you know, in vacations, and manage to get 
along with- what the thousand dollars will do for 
him; many of the first men in the country have 
done this.” 

“And who knows but Paul may be a genius, 
Mark?” 

“Who knows, Eunice? At all events, he shall 
have a chance to prove whether he is.” 

“So he shall. We will make up our minds this 
hour, Mark, that we shall never touch a dollar of 
this legacy of my uncle’s ; Paul shall have it all.” 

So it was decided betwixt us; and then Mark 
concluded we would go over to our uncle’s that 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 207 

night, and release him forever from all charge of 
my brother. 

“ 0, what will Paul say when he hears of ail 
j this?” 

“ It ’ll almost upset his wits. I can sympathize 
with him, Eunice, in all his youthful hopes and as- 
pirations, though nature never intended me for 
a scholar, I suppose.” 

“ She intended you for a good, true, noble man, 
any how, Mark Truman.” 

“ It ’s pleasant to hear such praise from your lips, 
little lady. But, bustle up, and get my lunch in 
a hurry, for I must make hay while such a sun as 
; this is in the sky.” 

And, while Mark ate his biscuit and pie, and 
praised the Spring beer I had made the day before, 
I went away back into my childhood, and searched 
among the closets of my memory for my old uncle, 
Ezra Northrop. I remembered the white-haired 
old man came to see us, when my life was slipping 
off its fifth birthday, and that he had trotted me on 
his knee, and told me stories of the days when he 
was a little boy, and his father, who was a corporal 
in the Bevolutionary Army, shouldered his musket 
and went off to battle; and how he took Ezra in 
his arms and blessed him; and his mother, who 
was my great-grandmother, put her arms around 
her husband’s neck, and said: 

“The God of battles take care of you, Jedediah!” 
and how the strong man could not speak another 


208 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 


word, but went out of the gate with a look that his 
son had carried in his memory through all the years 
»of his life. 

And Mark listened and laughed, when I told him 
a moment later, how my great-grandmother paused 
suddenly in the midst of her sobs, and the tears 
stood still on her cheeks, and she rushed out of the 
gate, and a little way down the road, and called to 
her husband, who was just turning the corner of 
the road by the creek — “Jedediah, you’ll find the 
doughnuts and the apple-pies in the white towel in 
your right-hand pocket.” And Mark brought down 
his hand on the table, with a blow that made it 
ring, and said: 

“That’s just the sort of a wife a man wants — 
one that will see her husband start out to defend 
his country, with the blessing of God, and her 
brave, loving heart; and that won’t forget to slip 
the gingerbread into a corner of his coat pocket at 
the last minute. A man ’s rich enough with such a 
wife, Eunice.” And Mark poured out another glass 
of my beer, and, as he raised it to his lips, said, in 
his own peculiar way: 

“All honor and praise to them, for their brave, 
loving hearts — for their strong faith in God, that 
never faltered, in the darkest hour of their coun- 
try’s need and peril — for all they did and suffered — 
for the old firesides they made so happy — for all 
their teachings and examples left to us, their chil- 
dren, and which have made us the men we are this 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 209 

day. I drink to their memories — the mothers of 
the Revolution!” 

And, looking on Mark Truman’s face, as he set 
down the glass, I wondered how any one could ever 
call him a 'homely man. 

Just after tea, in the cool of the Summer even- 
ing, we rode over to uncle Joshua’s. My heart was 
full of the great joy it was hearing to Paul; hut I 
was a little tremulous and excited, for I feared 
there might he high words betwixt my husband 
and my uncle; but when I suggested this to Mark 
he j ust said : 

“ Do n’t you go to getting nervous about that, 
Eunice. I know the man’s weak point and I can 
manage him.” 

We found uncle Joshua quite alone, for his family 
happened to be away from home. He sat by his 
table, with his head bowed over some accounts he 
was “ running up” of the probable gains of the next 
harvest. He is getting to be an old man, and as 
he lifted his head and I saw the iron-gray locks 
round the hard, harsh, wrinkled face, on which was 
written the story of his life, a shiver, half of pity, 
half of disgust, went over me. I think he divined 
the object of our visit, for there was a little defiant 
expression in his eyes, though he shook hands with 
us and offered us chairs. There was a little indif- 
ferent conversation betwixt the two men on the 
weather and the promise of the crops, and then 
Mark said: 


14 


210 THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 

“I am not a man of many words, Mr. Webber, 
and so I may as well open the subject of my visit 
this evening at once. You have had our brother 
with you a number of years now; and as we have 
a home of our own and want him with us, we have 
concluded to take him off your hands; and from 
this night you need never have any farther care of 
him. I have been in a hurry to have this thing 
settled, because Paul has told us your intention of 
apprenticing him to a joiner’s trade-, for which busi- 
ness he has no kind of liking; and I think young 
boys should have some voice in selecting their own 
following in life, as I believe their bent is to be con- 
sidered. However, that ’s not to the point. We ’ll 
take Paul off your hands from this hour — that’s 
all?” 

The old, harsh face flushed into a great heat of 
anger. “ I reckon you '11 find,” he said, “ that it 
takes two to make a bargain afore you get through ; 
and I do n’t intend to give Paul up so easy as that. 
I 've made up my mind that he shall go to a jiner’s 
trade. What the boy wants is a good toughinin’, 
and to have some of his womanish notions which he 
got from his mother knocked out of him. I know 
what ’s good for him, and I do n’t intend to let him 
go now, after I ’ve had the care and trouble of him 
for six years.” 

“Look here, Mr. Webber,” answered the calm, 
steadily -poised voice of my husband, “there’s no 
use. in getting angry over this matter, and I did n’t 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 


211 


come here to-night to have any quarrel with you. 
What I have to state is a few facts, and then I ’m 
done. If you do n’t choose to give up Paul, that ’s 
all; but I know the ground I’m on; and I’ve had 
a long talk with a lawyer this afternoon, and I ’m 
certain that you have no legal claim on the boy. 
His parents never gave you any; and, moreover, 
he ’s paid you in hard labor, as I can bring forward 
plenty of evidence, for every meal he ’s eaten under 
your roof. Moreover, there ’s a piece of woodland 
in South Meadows, as you know, that you ’ve got 
rather a shaky title to, as Paul’s father could prove 
if he was alive, and as I shall try to in case you 
make us any further trouble about your nephew. 
I don’t come here to threaten you, only to state 
what I know, and I shall put the matter through 
at once, for I ’m a man of my word, and you ’d 
better consider before you decide; for in my mind, 
if you carry a high hand now, it ’ll be a pretty ex- 
pensive piece of business to you before you get 
through.” 

Many changes went over the old man’s face while 
my husband was talking. It reddened and paled 
alternately. There was a little pause, and then 
uncle Joshua spoke; and his voice was not like his 
former one. Mark had well said he knew his weak 
point. 

“Wall, Mr. Truman, if you’re bent on havin’ the 
boy, take him, I say, afore I ’ll have the bother 
and plague of a lawsuit at my time of life. He ’s 


212 THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 

never earned the salt to his porridge; and as for 
his bein’ any good to me, I shall be better off to be 
rid of such a lazy dog.” 

The old farmer’s voice trembled, and his great 
brown hands shook with suppressed rage as he fin- 
ished. But these last words stung me out of si- 
lence. It had been very hard to bear the sneer 
with which he had coupled my dead mother’s name 
with Paul’s, and the indignation at my heart broke 
out at last. 

“What you say is not true, uncle Joshua, and 
you know it. I charge it on your gray hairs that 
you have wronged the son of your dead brother! 
I call God, who will judge you in a little while, to 
witness the truth of my words, that you took that 
helpless, orphan boy to your home, and for six 
years compelled him to work beyond his strength; 
that you blackened and blighted his helpless youth 
all that you could, with many cruel words and 
taunts, because he had not strength to labor as you 
could; and you did all these things because the 
love of gold had got possession of you, and eaten 
into your very soul, and made you a miser instead 
of a man! And now answer to God as you can 
for these things; and answer as you can to Paul’s 
father and mother when they meet you with the 
question, ‘Did you do well with the child that we 
left on earth?’ ” 

The words came right up from my heart to my 
lips, as though some one else spoke them, I could 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 


213 


not have stopped sooner than I did. Mark looked 
at me in utter amazement. As for my uncle, he 
shook from head to foot, and his face was whiter 
than his gray hairs. I had spoken solemn facts 
which no other human being would have dared to 
utter to him, for every body with whom he is 
brought in intimate contact fears him. But now 
the truth struck home, and his whole life stood out 
before him in its true colors. It roused all the 
evil passions within him — it stung him into frenzy. 
He rose up, every limb shaking, and he opened his 
white lips twice to speak, and the words died out in 
his throat; the third time they came. 

He shook his clenched hand at me with a fearful 
oath. His face blazed with wrath. “ Begone out 
of my house!’ 7 

“Come, Eunice, come!” said my husband, and he 
took my hand, and the old man glared after us a3 
we walked out of the house. 

The moonlight lay like a silver lake over the 
earth, and we saw Paul coming up the road. Sud- 
denly he caught sight of us and rushed up, his 
brown eyes full of amazement. 

“Get in and go home with us, Paul,” said Mark. 
“You’ll never cross your uncle’s threshold again!” 

“Mark — Eunice, what does it mean?” asked 
Paul, staring bewildered from one to the other. 

“Don’t ask now; jump in, that’s all,” and Paul 
followed me, without saying a word, and evidently 
half believing he was in a dream. 


214 THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 

As we started, I leaned my head on Mark’s 
shoulder and burst into tears. 

“Do n’t cry, darling,” said my husband. “You ’ve 
done a good work, a grand work to-night. I did n’t 
know my wife was such an eloquent little preacher 
before.” 

“’T was n’t I, Mark. It was something speaking 
through me.” 

And Paul’s beautiful, pale face lifted to ours still 
asked, “What does it all mean?” 

And as we drove home through the black surf 
of shadows, and the white foam of moonlight, Mark 
told Paul all that had transpired during our visit 
to his uncle’s. 

My brother slipped his hands into mine, and the 
tears glistened still in the eyes that his mother 
gave him; then a shadow fell where they shone. 

“0 Mark — Eunice, how can I come to you and 
be dependent on you!” 

I answered before Mark could. “Ho matter, 
Paul; we’ve got all that arranged, but I can’t tell 
you till we get home.” It was a still, happy rido 
the rest of the way, that I shall never forget. 

We went into the house and sat down in the 
dear little sitting-room. Then I told Paul of the 
legacy that had come to me from my uncle Ezra 
Northrop, and what we had concluded to do with it. 

And Paul’s answer was not for himself, “ 0 
Mark — Eunice, I can not, I will not take this 
from you!” 


THE HEART OF MARK TRUMAN. 


215 


Mark and I had to reason and plead long with 
the proud boy before we overcame his scruples. 

At last he threw down his slight, graceful figure 
on a stool at my feet. “Well, Eunice, if I take 
this money it shall only be as a loan ! I will pay 
you some day ! 0, you are the best sister a brother 
ever had!” 

“But just think, Paul, you are to realize the one 
dream of your life; you are to have an education!" 

He was on his feet in a moment, and giving him- 
self up to the great joy of that thought. “It seems 
too good to be true! 0 Eunice, from this night 
my life opens new and glowing before me! I have 
no more to ask of it." 

“I have," subjoined Mark, with a covert flash of 
humor from his eyes. “I want a glass of beer and 
a slice of loaf cake; come, Eunice!" 

And that night three happy hearts went to sleep, 
blessed of God and at peace with the world, under 
the small cottage roof wherein Mark Truman was 
master. 















































































































































































































r 
















































































TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 


I. 

“Christine, will you go out on the lake this 
evening? It’s a splendid night for a sail.” 

The young lady thus interrogated sat by one of 
the front chamber windows of a large and handsome 
country residence. Her feet rested on an ottoman, 
and she was surveying the rosettes which mounted 
a pair of daintily-embroidered slippers, with a lan- 
guid air and an absent, half-dissatisfied expression. 

At her brother’s question she turned and looked 
out of the window, and the Summer evening re- 
vealed its beauty and its glory to the eyes of Chris- 
tine Jarvys. 

The house was situated on an eminence which 
commanded a view of the country for miles around. 
The moon had just come over the distant mount- 
ains, and from her urn of gold was poured out that 
crystal river of light, whose waves overflowed the 
landscape, and lent a spiritual grace and beauty to 
every object which they touched. About a mile 
off, beyond the meadows, lay the lake --its silver 


218 TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 

seam of waters flashing between the green shores, 
and losing itself in a bend of the mountains. The 
winds shook out sweet perfumes from the garden 
beneath; the thick stars over head were blurred 
by no faintest film of cloud; and so, in its white 
flowing tunic of moonlight, the Summer evening 
uncovered its face, and stood up before Christine 
Jarvys. 

Her eyes, like harebells, did not brighten much 
in loving recognition of its beauty. There was a 
shadow still on the young and sweet face, which 
she turned to her brother. “ I do n't feel much 
like going out on the water this evening, Asa," 
she said, and the listless tones suited the shadows 
in her face. “Who is to go besides you?" 

“0, nobody except Frank Eeynolds and Ben 
Grant to manage the boat. I say, sis, you 'd bet- 
ter go along, instead of staying here and moping 
through the evening all alone." And the young 
man threw his slight, graceful limbs into the chair 
opposite his sister. 

“I think that I shall be able to stand it some- 
how," answered the young lady, with a resigned 
expression of tone and face which plainly indicated 
that she regarded martyrdom as her peculiar des- 
tiny, and intended to meet her fate with becoming 
fortitude. 

Asa Jarvys leaned forward, rested one hand on 
his sister’s knee, and looked in her face. 

“What’s gone wrong now, Christie, that you re 


TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 219 

down in the dumps like this? Come, sis, don’t act 

so, but brighten up, and tell a fellow what’s to 
„ „ >> 

Thus adjured, the young lady condescended to 
explain the causes which had produced her present 
gloomy views of human nature and the world in 
general. 

“ The truth is, Asa, you ’re a man, and won’t un- 
derstand any thing about it; but my bonnet came 
home this afternoon, and it’s a perfect fright — a 
great bunch of poppies on the outside, and purple 
mignonnette scattered through the inside trim- 
ming — when purple is so unbecoming; it always 
made me look hideous.” 

Asa Jarvys was a generous, good-natured young 
man — moreover, he loved his pretty sister dearly — 
so he put on a deeply-sympathetic voice and face, 
much as a father would over a decapitated plaster 
of Paris dog, which his child might hold up to him. 

“ Well, it ’s too bad about the bonnet, Christie, 
that ’s a fact.” 

“But that isn’t all, Asa. My dress-maker has 
just sent me word that she forgot the blue trim- 
mings for my dove-colored silk when she went to 
the city, and so I sha’ n’t have it ready to wear to 
Judge Hamlin’s to-morrow evening.” 

“The victim of a milliner and a mantua-maker! 
On the whole, .Christie, you are an amiable girl, but 
I do n’t suppose that the most exemplary of your 
sex could stand such a conjunction of trials and 


220 TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 


sufferings ! A ruined bonnet and an unfinished 
dress ! It ’s too much ! I stand appalled before 
such an abyss of miseries !” and a loud, hearty 
* laugh concluded, as was most fitting, the mock 
sympathy of Asa Jarvys’s speech. 

But to tell the truth, he commenced it with a 
benevolent intention of entering fully into his sis- 
ter’s feelings and disappointments. But his sense 
of the ludicrous was keen, and his relish of a joke 
intense, and the latter carried the day. 

Christine Jarvys drew back with an unusual dis- 
play of dignity. “ I see how it is, Asa ; you ’re 
making fun of my troubles after all ; I do n’t want 
any more of your pretended sympathy.” 

“Well now, sis, it is too bad, really. I’m just 
as sorry for the little girl as I can be leaning for- 
ward once more and seizing the small wrists. But 
as though his sister’s cup of afflictions was not yet 
filled to the brim, a jet bracelet, exquisitely 
mounted with carved ivory, snapped under the 
young man’s hand. Christine gave a loud shriek, 
as the beautiful, fragile toy fell to the floor, and 
scattered the carpet with snowy fragments of dainty 
workmanship. 

This was too much. Christine Jarvys fell back 
in her chair and burst into tears. 

Her brother felt this was no time for joking, and 
with real concern on his face he put his arm around 
his sister. “ I ’m so sorry, Christie ; I would n’t 
have done it for all the world, truly. Come now, 




TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 221 

kiss me and make up, and you shall have another 
bracelet, handsomer than this.” 

“ I do n't want another,” sobbed the petted girl. 
“ Uncle Eufus gave me that on my last birthday, 
and I wouldn’t have had it broken for all the 
world. I know what your sympathy is good for, 
and that you are laughing at me all the time.” 

“Look up, and see if I am. Come, sis, don’t 
pout any more. Forget all about your troubles, 
and go out and have a sail and a song with me ; 
it ’s high time we were off.” 

“I can’t go with you, Asa; do n’t wait for me” — 
hugging the luxury of her grief. 

“Well, then, good-by; when I come back, two 
hours later, I hope I shall find a better-natured 
little sister,” said the young man as he rose up, a 
little annoyed that his attempts to appease the girl 
met with no better success. He kissed her fore- 
head, for her cheeks were hidden in her hands, and 
then he went out. 

Christine Jarvys sat still in the moonlight, and 
listened for her brother’s steps. She heard them 
go swiftly down the long stone walk, and pause at 
the front gate while he talked with the gardener. 
She took her hands from her eyes and looked out, 
and the silence and beauty of the night reproved 
her. The better part of her nature rose up, and 
showed her that she had been unjust and irritable. 
Despite all the faults of her education, she had fine 
instincts, and a generous and tender nature. She 


222 TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 

/ 

sprang up and ran down stairs, and out into the 
garden. Her brother had gone some distance down 
the road, but her voice reached out after, and fou^d 
him. 

“Asa! Asa!” 

He turned back, at once half suspecting the 
truth. 

“Asa,” and she put her soft arms about his neck, 
“lam sorry I was so cross to you just now, but I 
was so fretted, you know. ’T is n’t any matter 
about the bracelet ; and I ’ve come down here to 
kiss you good-by for two hours.” 

“What! aren’t you going with us? Run back 
and get your bonnet.” 

“I can’t, Asa, dear. Mrs. Melvyn sent me a 
message that she would pass an hour with me this 
evening, and I promised to be at home. But I 
hope you ’ll have a nice time.” 

She put up a pair of lips that were like the June 
roses in the full blush of bloom on the veranda, and 
her brother bent down his handsome head and 
kissed them warmly. 

“Good-by, Christie. Be a good girl, and X shall 
be back in a couple of hours.” 

And so they parted at the garden gate; and the 
last chapter of Asa and Christine Jarvys’s life to- 
gether was closed without sign or warning. Its 
pages had been made up of the pleasant years of 
their childhood and youth, and all the lines had 
been written in light and gladness. But in after 


TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 223 

years, those last words and that last kiss were to 
the hear! '£ Christine Jarvys like golden blossoms, 
covering the tendrils of memory, which took their 
deep root in that last hour of her brother’s life. 

Asa and Christine Jarvys were orphans. They 
had, however, been adopted by their father’s brother 
and his wife. The gentleman was a wealthy banker 
in New York, and as he had no children of his own, 

1 he and his wife had lavished their affection on their 
nephew and niece. 

No wealth had been spared — no luxury it could 
purchase forgotten in the training of the young or- 
phan boy and girl. Their uncle and aunt made 
I earthly idols of the children which had fallen to 
l them, and they grew up with no faint idea of all 
the sorrow, and trial, and discipline, which are the 
heritage of the sons and daughters of men. The 
brother and sister were favorites with all who knew 
them. The boy, with his dark, thin, finely-cut face 
and flashing eyes, in which spirit and mirth were 
forever at strife, was a perfect antithesis to Chris- 
tine, whose face was the bequest of her mother. 
Looking on her, at rest, you would have thought of 
a lily, with its great snowy petals opened full to the 
sunlight. But the face of Christine Jarvys was not 
often at rest; it was full of quick change and re- 
sponse, which set bright- carnations in the cheeks; 
and her eyes, like harebells, kept smiles, as her 
brother’s did laughter ; and in light, and in shadow, 
fell over the soft oval profile the brown hair, whose 


224 TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 

rich tints were also the gift of the mother to the 
child, who could not remember her. 

Asa had graduated with high honors at college. 
Christine, two years his junior, was accomplished 
after her age and social standard. But though her 
life of ease and luxury had weakened and warped 
her heart and soul, still the good seed waited in the 
warm soil for the early and latter rains, which 
should quicken them into life and blossoming. 

Mr. and Mrs. Jarvys resided in the city; but as 

they grew older, their annual visits to watering 

places became irksome, and they at last purchased 

a handsome country house in a picturesque little 

town in the interior of the State, and thither the 

0 9 

family repaired every May. 

It was a beautiful spot, locked up in rare shrub- 
beries, with gardens and groves; and as the master 
and mistress were extremely hospitable, their coun- 
try home was frequently crowded with company 
from the city; and so the brother and sister sported 
and dreamed away the Summer, in the midst of 
scenery that was a constant picture and poem to 
the head that could receive it. 

Mr. and Mrs. Jarvys had been suddenly sum- 
moned from home on some business, at the time of 
which I write, and it chanced that the brother and 
sister were left alone, as the guests they were ex- 
pecting did not arrive till a week later. 

Christine Jarvys went slowly up to the house in 
the white moonlight. The shadow had gone off 


TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 225 

from her face, and it had now its look like the lily, 
with the sweetness -and the dream of a Summer 
afternoon resting upon it. 

She quite forgot her spoiled bonnet, her unfin- 
ished dress, her broken bracelet. She gathered a 
few sprays of mignonnette, and some carnations — for 
flowers flanked either side of the front walk — and 
then, after a long pause on the front steps, in which 
she did true and loving reverence to the night, she 
went into the parlor. A gentleman rose up from 
the sofa, and informed her that he brought her a 
message from Mrs. Melvyn. The lady had been 
surprised that evening by the unexpected advent of 
her parents, and would not be able to fulfill her en- 
gagement with Miss Jarvys. 

The bright eyes of the young heiress searched 
the speaker’s face as he delivered his message. It 
was a fine one, with a thin delicacy of outline, and 
a thoughtful, earnest expression, which made you 
feel at once you were in the presence of a man of 
force and cultivation. 

The eyes had a steady brightness, wholly unlike 
the flash and change of Asa’s; and the lips had 
a smile not frequent nor mirthful, but full of grave 
sweetness, which matched the eyes. 

“Will you take a seat, sir?” said Christine, as 
the gentleman concluded his errand. 

“Thank you; I fear I shall detain you;” and the 
young man took his hat, evidently supposing the 
invitation merely conventional. 

i5 


226 TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 

“0, no; I am quite alone, as my brother has 
gone out on the lake for an hour or two.” 

The gentleman looked in the girl’s face. It was 
a steady, searching gaze, yet by no means intru- 
sive. 

He was satisfied that her invitation was a sincere 
one. He resumed his seat. 

“You are a friend of Mrs. Melvyn’s, I con- 
clude?” asked Christine. 

“ My older brother, who is dead, was a friend and 
classmate of her husband’s. I am, for the next 
six months, the tutor of her two sons.” 

Somehow the better instincts of the flattered 
heiress recognized the true manliness of her guest 
in the brief, candid answer. There was no question 
but the tutor was a gentleman, after the best, 
truest meaning of the word — a meaning that com- 
prehends certain indigenous qualities of heart and 
soul, which no social grafting can confer. 

Christine smiled the bright, frank smile, which 
filled her face with light and sweetness. “Well, I 
am a woman, you know, and have my legacy of 
curiosity; but I will not exercise the prerogative 
of my sex further than to ask you one question 
more — What is your name?” 

“Latimer Winthrop. It is known neither in 
camps nor councils, neither in the world of letters 
nor on Wall-street; it is famous nowhere; and in 
the wide world its best merit is, I believe, that it 
is precious to a very few hearts.” 


TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 227 

“ You are a very strange man,” thought Christine 
Jarvys. Her guest smiled quietly to himself. “Did 
he guess what I was thinking !” wondered Christine. 

After this, she could not tell how, they slipped off 
into an animated conversation on a thousand differ- 
ent matters. Christine was glad enough to find a 
man who led her out of herself, and whose speech 
had some nerve and force in it; who never availed 
himself of an opportunity to turn a pretty compli- 
ment to herself; but who stimulated her own 
thoughts, who was full of suggestion and apprecia- 
tion of men, books, and the world in general. 

At last, in a pause of the conversation, they 
heard a sudden gasp and cry of the wind outside. 

“Dear me! what can it mean?” said Christine, 
and she and her guest rose and hurried to the 
window. 

* It was a strange sight — the great cloud, coming 
up from the east, and wrapping in its black gar- 
ments the golden “stream of stars,” and the grace 
and beauty of the night vanished like the vision of 
a dream before it. 

“0, how dreadful!” exclaimed Christine; and she 
shuddered, standing by the tutor of the young 
Melvyns. 

“That depends upon the eyes with which we 
look at it,” said the young man, with his grave, 
sweet smile, and it was evident that to his eyes the 
cloud had no “dreadful” voice or language. 

This thought came into Christine Jarvys’s mind 


228 TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 

as she stood by the window. It was followed by 
another, which struck all the color from her cheeks. 

“0, what will become of Asa, if the wind should 
overtake him?” 

“Does he know how to manage the boat?” asked 
Mr. Winthrop, with a good deal of interest. 

“Hot in a storm; but Ben Grant, who has 
charge of the boat, is an old sailor — still, I can’t 
help feeling alarmed.” 

“I think there is no cause for solicitude; and 
then there is no thought to calm our fears like the 
blessed one that God is over us in all danger.” 
Christine’s eyes, like harebells, lifted to her guest’s, 
grew full of a strange awe and wonder. Truly 
this man was unlike any she had ever met. 

Then the storm broke with a wild cry. The 
great branches rocked and wrenched under it. It 
thundered back and forth, and fairly shook the 
foundations of the great house, where Christine sat 
with the young tutor, her heart filled with a great 
fear for her brother. 

But the storm did not last long. Swift as the 
wind arose, it fell. The black wings of the cloud 
dropped slowly away, and there was a great calm. 
The stars looked out from a mist thinner than the 
film of bridal laces. 

“ It is time Asa was here,” exclaimed Christine. 

At that moment the front gate opened sharply; 
swift steps pelted the stones, and a moment later 
a youth of about sixteen burst into the parlor. His 


TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 229 

coarse, yellow hair hung in draggled locks about 
his white face; his clothes were dripping, and he 
stammered out, in an agony of fright and terror — 
“ The boat ’s gone down ! The wind upset her ! 
Won’t somebody go to their help?” 

If you had heard poor Christine shriek then ! 
Mr. Winthrop caught her, or she would have fallen. 
But there was no time to be lost; he laid the girl 
on the sofa; and he did not know that his lips ut- 
tered aloud the prayer which was in his heart, and 
that Christine had heard it — “God have mercy 
upon you !” 

Then the young man rushed out of the room; 
but his hostess sprang up, and swift as a deer met 
him at the front door — “0, you will save my 
brother !” she cried, with lips like those out of which 
never came word nor sound. 

“ God be witness that I shall try !” and he was 
gone, and the boy followed him. 

Mr. Winthrop was a fine swimmer; and though 
the lake was nearly a mile from the residence of 
Mr. Jarvys, he was only a few minutes in reaching 
the shore; for his feet seemed scarcely to touch the 
ground on his way. 

He paused once only to ask the boy, who had 
followed but could not keep up with him, a few nec- 
essary questions. He ascertained that he was the 
son of the fisherman, Benjamin Grant. His father 
had been suddenly summoned from home that even- 
ing, and the two young men had persuaded him to 


230 TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 

go out on the lake with the sail-boat, which he was 
not accustomed to managing alone. 

They would, however, have been safe enough if it 
had not been for the sudden “ squall of wind” which 
overtook them before they could reach the shore; 
and in attempting to turn the boat around, she 
upset. 

The boy swam to shore, and hurried to Mr. Jar- 
vys’s for help, as that gentleman’s house was near- 
est to the "lake. He fancied both of the young men 
could keep their “heads above water” till assist- 
ance could be procured. And with a prayer that it 
might be so, Latimer Winthrop rushed toward the 
shore at the point the boy indicated. 

The moon sailed out from the frayed edges of the 
clouds, and looked down upon the fretted waters. 
In the distance the young man thought he discerned 
a head sinking and rising in the waters ; he plunged 
in, and was not' long in reaching it, and with great 
difficulty conveyed the nearly-drowned man to the 
shore. 

Benjamin Grant had just arrived there. The 
honest-hearted old man was full of alarm and grief 
at what had occurred. He looked eagerly in the 
white, unconscious face which Mr. Winthrop laid 
down on the sands. 

“It’s Mr. Baymond!” he s?id. 

And where was Christine’s brother? The small 
sail-boat was drifting to and fro on the waves, like 
great silver wings blossoming out of the dark wa- 


TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 231 

ters. The two men swam out to it, after consign- 
ing Mr. Raymond to the care of Benjamin Grant’s 
son. 

By this time all traces of that wild cloud was 
wiped off from the face of the sky. The stars and 
the moon looked down bright and calm on the white 
faces of the men. They searched for an hour in 
silence, and then they found him! They drew him 
up tenderly and laid him in the boat; and as they 
thought of his sister at home, both the young man 
and the old one felt that they would gladly lay 
down their own lives if they could call the breath 
back to that beautiful clay. 

The moonlight fell sweetly on the young, dead 
face, which had in it no traces of pain or struggle, 
and shone over the sweet, clustering hair which had 
so lately crowned the proud, restless head. No 
wonder the strong men wept as they laid it down 
tenderly in the boat. 

And Christine? 

For two slow, slow hours, that seemed longer 
than all the rest of her life, she had watched and 
waited. The servants had all gone out, with the 
exception of a chamber-maid, who tried to comfort 
her mistress, as she sometimes sank down into stolid 
despair, and then rose up and wrung her hands, 
and wandered through the rooms, her wild, white 
face full of agony. 

At last her strained ear caught the muffled 
sound of footsteps outside. They were bringing 


232 TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 

their burden up the walk. "Carry him in by tbo 
side door, and I will go up and try to break tbe 
truth to her,” said Mr. Winthrop, in a low voice, 
to tbe men. But at that moment a slight figure 
plunged down tbe steps and rushed toward tbe 
lifeless form. The light of the moon fell brightly 
on the dead face. Christine staggered back. 

"Is he drowned ?” she said, looking up in so 
pitiful a way that the men could not speak; but 
she looked in each face, and read her answer there; 
and then Christine lay on the ground as unconscious 
as her brother. 

Latimer Wiuthrop lifted the girl and carried her 
into the house. He bathed her temples, and as- 
sisted the frightened chambermaid to restore her to 
consciousness; yet he dreaded the time when she 
should open her eyes; and looking on her as she 
lay in her fair, sweet beauty before him, he said, 
stroking the bright hair, "Poor little crushed lily! 
I wish that I could help you, for the first great 
storm has come down on your life, and how can 
you meet it — you for whom it has always been 
sunshine and soft winds?” But the youth in Chris- 
tine’s veins triumphed in a little while, and she 
opened her eyes. 

The young man saw that she knew all. She was 
off from the lounge where she lay, in a moment, 
and when he would have held her back, she struck 
aside his arm, and rushing out of the room, seemed 
led by some instinct to tie one where her brother lay. 


TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 233 

She knelt down by him — with her shaking fin- 
gers she put away the clustering hair from the 
broad, white brow. 

“Look up at me; speak to me, darling/' she 
moaned. “You said you'd come back to me in an 
hour or two, when you kissed me at the garden 
gate. Your little sister can't live without, you, Asa, 
for she loved you better than her own life ! I must 
have you back again. I must hear your voice call- 
ing sweetly after me — * Christie! Christie!’ — as it 
used to. I can't believe it’s silent forever! 0, 
Asa, my heart will break! — my heart will break! 
Open your eyes and smile at me once more,” and 
she put down her warm cheek to the cold white one, 
and shuddered as the chill went through her. 

She looked up, and Mr. Winthrop was standing 
by her side. “Can’t you help me?” she said, as 
a lost, frightened child that had sobbed itself into 
exhaustion would have said it. 

“ My child,” answered the young tutor, in a voice 
husky and broken, “it is God only who can help 
you now.” 

And Christine’s broken heart went out, for the 
first time, with a new call and yearning after Him, 
whom, in her happiness, she had scarcely remem- 
bered, but who, she felt in the hour of her great 
sorrow, from which all human aid shrank appalled 
and unavailing, could alone give her help or healing. 

“God have pity upon me!” she sobbed, and then 
the tears washed in great jets over her face, and 


234 


TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 


Mr. Winthrop led her faint steps from the room. 
Poor Christine ! 

All that night he did not leave her ; and 0, what 
sweet, and strong, and blessed words he said tc 
her — words that fell in healing balsams on her 
spirits — words of faith, and trust, and submission; 
and, for the first time, Christine Jarvys's eyes were 
opened, and she saw something of the Great Eternal 
Love, whose sea had flowed all about her life ; and 
from the lost earthly love her heart went, as so 
many have done, to the heavenly. 

And when the first gray flakes of dawn were seen 
in the east, Christine Jarvys fell asleep, strength- 
ened and comforted. The next day a telegram 
brought back Mr. and Mrs. Jarvys to their broken 
household. There was no one to behold the meeting 
of the uncle and aunt with the nephew, whose eyes 
were never more to look upon them, and who had 
been the pride and the joy of their hearts. 

He lay there, so lifelike, with something of the 
old smile coming back to his white lips; but — 
alas for thy beauty laid low in the morning, Asa 
J arvy s ! 

II. 

Two years have passed. It was once more the 
time of the blossoming of roses, and Christine 
Jarvys came out of the front door of her country 
home, and looked once more upon the fair land- 
scape in its shining wrappers of moonlight. The 


TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 235 

bright seam of waters flashed in the distance; the 
road lay, like a soiled yellow fringe on the dark- 
green edge of the meadows, and far off stood the 
great silent hills, reposing in majesty, and the robe 
of the Summer was woven thick and beautiful upon 
them. 

Christine came out from the shadows of the vines 
which covered the veranda, and leaned against one 
: of the pillars, and the moonlight fell full upon her 
face. 

Somehow, those two years had changed it, but 
the change was that which comes not of years, but 
of character. Something more thoughtful, more 
spiritual, had come to the sweet face. The memory 
of that night came back to Christine Jarvys as she 
gazed. “It was just such an evening as this, and 
right in that white belt of moonlight by the gate 
I you kissed me for the last time — 0, Asa!” she 
murmured. 

“Miss Christine!” The girl started, for the 
; speaker had entered the grounds by the side gate, 
and come round to the front steps so lightly, that 
; she had not heard him. Her face flushed into glad 
surprise, as she gave the speaker her hand, with 
the cordiality of a long friendship. 

“I am glad to see you back once more, Mr. 
Winthrop.” 

“Thank you. The three months since I left 
have seemed a long time to me, though they 've 
been filled to the brim with hard study. I've 


236 TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 

finished my profession, and run up to get yours and 
the Melvyns' congratulations!” 

“You would have had mine without the asking.” 

“That is more than I expected. It is a night 
wonderful for beauty, Miss Christine.” 

“Wonderful for beauty!” But there was some- 
thing in the lady's sweet voice which made one 
think of the tolling of bells. Latimer Winthrop 
glanced swiftly in her face, and he knew what 
night her memory clasped with this one. 

“ I do n’t know what I should have done without 
you then,” said the young girl, drawing a little 
nearer to the gentleman, as the old memories 
surged over her. 

“It was not I, Miss Christine; it was God that 
helped you.” 

“ I never could have borne it otherwise. I won- 
der if I needed that terrible lesson — if without it 
my life would always have gone on in the old chan- 
nels of frivolity and self-seeking, with no real aim, 
or purpose, or hope!” 

Looking on the girl as she spoke, a grave, sweet 
smile went over the face of Latimer Winthrop, but 
something flickered along the smile, and up into 
his eyes, which Christine did not see.. He drew 
nearer — he took her small hand in his own — 

“Christine,” and the speaker’s voice had lost a 
little of its steady poise — “I. must speak what I 
have to say in few words. That sweet ideal of 
womanhood which my heart has so long hungered 


TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 237 

after has been revealed to me. I do not believe 
that I should ever have found it if it had not 
been for that night two years ago. Christine, you 
are rich, and I am poor. I have nothing to offer 
you but a love that has twined itself so closely 
around the roots of my life, that it seems as though 
it would be death to tear it away. Yet it would 
not be, because I trust in God, and he will give 
me strength to receive your answer, whatever it 
may be. The Melvyns have told you all about 
me that there is to tell. A young lawyer, strug- 
gling up in life, can have little to offer a woman 
in your position, particularly when his dearest 
friends have all gone to sleep before him, and he 
has nothing but his own brave heart and his faith 
in God to help him. Christine, you know the rest. 
If your answer must be ‘No/ do not let it come 
from your lips, only take the hand, which I hold 
here, away.” 

The little, trembling hand lay still in his own, 
and Latimer Winthrop had his answer. Half an 
hour later, walking up and down the path swathed 
in moonlight, he said to her: 

“But, your uncle and aunt, Christine! You 
know what value they place on what I can not give 
you — wealth and position.” 

The eyes, like harebells, of Christine Jarvys, 
made answer with her lips: 

“They will value my heart more than these, 
when I tell them it is yours, Latimer.” 


238 TWO EVENINGS, TWO YEARS APART. 

And so the sorrow and the joy of the two June 
evenings were blended together in the heart of 
Christine Jarvys, and ever afterward they lent 
a tender sacredness and significance each to the 
other. 




TEMPTED, BUT NOT OVERCOME.” 


1C 


“Come now, Balph!" 

And the lady sprang up with a blush and a 
frown, and a little flutter of a smile, while the 
slipper which she was embroidering dropped to the 
floor. 

“Well, hang it! you've no business to look so 
pretty that a fellow can’t help kissing you." 

And he stood there, with his handsome, saucy 
face, his bright, amused eyes, his jaunty air, and 
the half-mischievous, half-penitent look which he 
had taken on for the occasion. 

She tried to look serious and dignified, as became 
a wife of three years' standing. “Cousin Balph, 
you forget that we are no longer children, and that 
it is n’t quite proper that you should be so — 
rude.” 

“ It 's a fact, May," gently seating her, and pick- 
ing up the slipper; “but looking at you sitting 
there as I came past the window, with your face 
bent down over your work, and your curls flutter- 
ing about it, I quite forgot that you were any thing 
but May Darling, and I Balph Upham, your boy 


240 “tempted, but not overcome.” 

lover, who used to tease you from morning till 
night, and end by loving you better than ever. 
You have the sweet face that used to laugh out on 
me from betwixt the lilac bushes, at the old south 
window at uncle Jacob’s; and I only thought of 
this when I kissed it.” 

His words had touched some secret chord of 
memory and feeling — you would have seen that, by 
the tremulous shadows which went over the sweet 
face — by the small, faint sigh that fluttered out of 
the lips, red as a stem of ripe currants. 

He had seated himself by her side, and had 
caught the tassels of her dressing-gown, and was 
swinging them back and forth while he talked with 
her. 

“Those were pleasant times, Balph; but perhaps 
it ’s qs well, now, not to talk of the past.” 

“Why not, pray? There is nothing, surely, in 
that fair picture lying away back in the memories 
of both our hearts, that we should not recall it 
together.” 

“ 0, Balph, you have n’t lost your old trick of 
talking every body into just your way of thinking!” 
and this time the lady looked up and smiled in her 
companion’s face; but there was a little shadow of 
doubt and pain in the smile. 

“And you have n’t lost your old face, May 
Darling, with its childlike, wistful look — the dear, 
sweet face that was the angel of my boyhood and 
youth.” 


241 


“tempted, but not overcome.” 

He was stroking the glossy, golden hair now, 
with that sort of restless grace with which Ealph 
Upham always did every thing. 

A deep flush mounted to the lady’s brow. “0, 
Ealph, you must not talk to me in that way!” and 
she moved uneasily. 

“ I beg your pardon, May, but how in the world 
can I help forgetting, every other minute, that you 
are the wife of another man ! By the by, I want 
to hear something of this husband of yours. I shall 
always owe him a grudge for cutting me out; but 
then he must be an incarnation of all excellencies 
to have found his way into that best room of your 
little heart.” 

“He is a good, true, noble man; and he would 
sacrifice his very life to make me happy.” 

She spoke the words out strong and bravely, as 
though they expressed a settled conviction of her 
heart. 

“I am glad to hear it, May. Whatever scape- 
grace I may have been in times gone by, my heart 
has always cherished the warmest desires for your 
happiness.” 

He saw these words had their effect, and con- 
tinued, after a little pause, “Well, tell me some- 
thing further about this husband of yours. Is he 
handsome ?” 

“No; but fine-looking.” 

“The world calls him a most promising young 
lawyer. Eeally, May, you can have nothing more 
1 6 


242 “tempted, but not overcome.” 

to wish for!” watching her face with his bright, 
keen eyes. 

“No — 0, no; nothing!” 

She spoke quick and emphatically, but not ex- 
actly with enthusiasm. 

“Well, I’m satisfied now, May, respecting your 
life — fully, entirely; and I need not tell you how 
my heart rejoices in this.” 

“You are very kind, Balph;” and now she looked 
up and smiled openly and warmly in his face. 

“I was at Winsted last week. The old place 
looks just as it used to.” 

This was opening into a great storehouse of 
old memories and old associations. Mrs. Denison’s 
thoughts instantly leaped forth to grasp them, for , 
she was an impulsive little creature; and she sat 
by the sitting-room window with her cousin that f 
Summer morning, and talked of her childhood, and 
walked amid the scenes which they two had lived 
together. Her cousin led her adroitly up and down 
the green, fragrant passages of her youth ; he spoke 
of frolics in the fields, and berryings in the woods, 
and sails on the pond. 

He flashed up before her the old Winter evenings 
at the brown parsonage, with their crackling birch 
fires, their piles of nuts and apples. The years of 
the past were his loom, and like a skillful weaver 
he shot out of it just what devices and patterns he * 
liked; every word that he uttered brought some 
new vision before his hearer — opened some window 


243 


“tempted, but not overcome.” 

to the eastward of her life. Nothing was too small 
or trivial for his notice, from the robin’s nest in the 
: great pear-tree, to the swing in the garret, and the 
ears of small corn which they brought down from 
the bushel basket under the rafters in the garret, 
every Winter. 

And Mrs. Denison drank in every word, and her 
face kindled, and quick laughs rang out of her lips, 
almost as sweet as the birds’ songs did out of the 
lilac-trees outside, and were caught and lost in the 
current of another laugh, stronger and deeper. 

0, she was a pretty, pretty creature, sitting there 
with her blue eyes so full of light, her fair, round 
cheeks kindled into quick flushes, and her glossy, 
golden curls flickering like lights about her face ! 

May Darling had been the only daughter of a 
clergyman, who had been for more than thirty 
years installed over the South Church in the quiet 
old country town of Winsted. 

The daisies grew over her mother’s grave before 
she could remember her ; and about the large grave 
clustered a company of small ones, telling the num- 
ber of her brothers and sisters who were angels in 
heaven. May was the light of her father’s eyes. 
She was a generous, impulsive, fascinating little 
creature, and her . life was much like the robins’, 
which made their nests every May in the branches 
of the pear-tree that grew close to the kitchen 
door. 

She had just touched her eighth year when Balph 


244 “tempted, but not overcome.” 

Upham came to the parsonage. He was three years 
her senior, one of those off-hand, sparkling, fun- 
loving boys that are sure to be favorites with every 
body. 

He was the son of the minister’s oldest sister’s 
first husband, and he was left quite alone in the 
world when his parents and his step-mother were 
called away from it. 

So the kind-hearted clergyman received him into 
his own family, and he became as a son to him, 
and as a brother to his child. 

But Balph caused his foster-father many hours of 
anxiety and pain; for, despite all his bright, merry 
ways, the minister could not fail to discern the lack 
of truth and fixed principle which the boy so fre- 
quently indicated, and without which there is no 
foundation to build up a character either perma- 
nently good or beautiful; and as the boy and girl 
grew up to man and womanhood, the old pastor 
watched with vague regret their growing attach- 
ment to each other. 

He resolved to send Balph to college, but he 
passed all his vacations at the parsonage, and, on 
his entering on his junior year, May was be- 
trothed to her cousin with her father’s consent. 

She had blossomed, in that quaint old parsonage, 
into a rarely-beautiful girl-woman,, and she gave to 
Balph Upham all the sweet flowing fountains of 
her woman’s faith and tenderness. 

But a terrible blow was appointed her, for 


245 


il TEMPTED, BUT NOT OVERCOME.” 

though Ealph IJpham graduated at college with 
the highest honors of his class, certain facts which 
transpired during the first year of his professional 
studies, justified the clergyman in withdrawing his 
consent to his daughter’s engagement. 

May yielded to her father’s will; but her obe- 
dience cost her a long and severe illness, from 
which she had scarcely recovered before her father 
was gathered to his wife and his children. After- 
ward May went to reside with an aunt of her 
mother’s in the city, and it was not strange that 
her loveliness won her many admirers. 

Her aunt was, however, a judicious and Christian 
woman, and softened and nourished by the rains 
which had fallen into her life, the character of May 
Darling blossomed into new strength and beauty, 
and the man who at last won her affections was 
one to whom her father and mother in heaven 
would have rejoiced to commit the earthly welfare 
of their child. 

May Darling had been for three years the happy 
and dearly-beloved wife of George Denison, when 
one afternoon, on coming out of a dry- goods store, 
where she had been making some purchases, she 
suddenly stood face to face with Ealph Upham. 

The meeting was demonstrative on his side, and 
embarrassed on hers, for May had not looked on 
that graceful figure, and those rings of bright-brown 
hair, since she watched them go out of the old par- 


246 “tempted, but not overcome.” 

sonage one May morning, seven years ago, when she 
was the betrothed wife of Ralph Upham. 

No wonder she was fluttered and embarrassed 
when she looked into that handsome face, that the 
old memories which he awakened arose and knocked 
at her heart. 

Mrs. Denison had known little of Ralph Upham’s 
career subsequent to their parting, save that he 
was practicing law at the West. He congratulated 
her on her marriage, and to her inquiry whether 
she should respond with like sentiments, he an- 
swered, half-gay ly, “0 no, May, I am an ordained 
old bachelor, you know.” 

But the glance which accompanied the words 
could not be misinterpreted, and Mrs. Denison 
knew that Ralph Upham meant her to understand 
it was for her sake that his heart could never hold 
another love. 

He accepted her invitation to call, and the next 
day — but you know this, reader. 

Ralph Upham was a skillful reader of human 
nature, and he was a bad man. Perhaps not ex- 
actly so, as the world goes, but he was bad in com- 
parison with a truly-good and noble ideal. Vanity 
and selfishness were the great underlying motives 
of his life. He was impulsive and susceptible, capa- 
ble of rising into temporary appreciation of all that 
was good and true in man or woman, but incapable 
of a noble, persistent life. The stream was corrupt 
at the fountain, and his was the more dangerous 


247 


“tempted, but not overcome.” 

because of his fascinating social qualities. No man 
was a greater favorite with women, and no man 
ever studied their hearts and characters, their 
hidden lives of emotion and feeling, with more ana- 
lytical shrewdness than he did. 

He had conversational powers of no ordinary 
kind, and as he was sympathetic^and reflective, 
he had a remarkable degree of social pliancy and 
adaptation; he could be brilliant, tender, gentle — 
whatever the time and circumstances demanded — 
and nothing stimulated his vanity so much as the 
knowledge of his success in awakening an interest 
in the , hearts of women, and wicked and contempt- 
ible as was this object, it had become a habit and a 
passion with Ealph Upham. 

There is no question but something of his better 
nature had awakened in his interview with Mrs. 
Denison — for all that was freshest and best in his 
heart had loved the beautiful girl with whom he 
had passed his boyhood and youth. But he was 
resolved to ascertain- whether his old power over 
her was entirely gone, a.nd _he was b ad a n d- base ^ 
e nough to sit beneath the roof of another man’s 
dwelling, a nd leave no eHbfT~untried to awaken in 
the soul of his wife those feelings and associat ions 
which it could only be wrong tolumHof her to^ 

! I have been here 

three whole hours !” 

Ealph Upham glanced at the French clock on 


cherish for one moment. 

“Is it possible! one o’clock 


248 “ TEMPTED, BUT NOT OVERCOME.” 

the mantle, whose silvery voice had just swung 
through the air. 

“Where have these three hours gone to?” ex- 
claimed Mrs. Denison. “I ’d no idea it was eleven!” 

“Neither had I. You will pardon me, May, for 
engrossing so much of your time. They have been 
pleasant and precious hours to me;” and now he 
took her hand with the freedom of a brother, and 
something of the tenderness of a lover, and clasped 
the soft, white fingers in his own. “But there is 
no use; I must come back to the hard, barren pres- 
ent, from the dear old lanes where I have walked 
to-day with you, May — where we walked together 
in our youth;” and then he repeated, as though 
half to himself, those exquisite verses in Long- 
fellow’s “Gleam of Sunshine:” 

“ Here runs the highway to the town, 

There the green lane descends, 

Through which I walked to Church with thee, 

0, gentlest of my friends ! 

The shadows of the linden-trees 
Lay moving on the grass, 

Between them and the moving boughs, 

A shadow thou didst pass. 

Thy dress was like the lilies, 

And thy heart was pure as they ; 

One of God’s holy messengers 
Did walk with me that day.” 

Then there fell a little silence. Mrs. Denison’s 
golden lashes were dropped low over her blue eyes, 
and her companion fancied they were blurred with 


249 


“tempted, but not ovekcome.” 

something which did not let her see clearly the 
half-finished embroidery in her lap. 

“We dine at two. You will stay, Ealph? I 
want to present you to George.” 

“Thank you. Nothing would afford me greater 
pleasure; but I have an imperative appointment at 
that time. I shall, however, be disengaged at four, 
and with your permission will call at four, and take 
you to ride in the suburbs.” 

She looked up, a little doubtful and disturbed. 

“ 0, come now, May, you won’t hesitate to grant 
so slight a privilege to one who was for so many 
years your brother? Say you will go, for the sake 
of the old rides we used to have.” 

“I think I will go, Ealph.” 

He bent down and kissed her cheek; this time 
she did not reprove him, but she turned away from 
the door and listened to his parting steps; and then 
she sat down, and sobs shook to and fro the delicate 
figure of May Denison. 

“Don’t, George, you’ll tumble my hair,” and the 
lady drew her head back with an impatient move- 
ment, and there was a quiver of petulance in her 
tones. 

George Denison bent forward, and gazed earnestly 
in his wife’s face; it looked cold and forbidding. 

“What’s the matter, little lady — got the blue3?” 

“Why — what makes you ask?” 

“ Because when a man comes home to dinner he 


250 u TEMPTED, BUT NOT OVERCOME.” 

likes to have the smile and kind word that he’s 
always used to.” 

The words touched May Denison, for she was an 
impulsive little woman; part of the coldness went 
out of her face as she leaned forward, saying — 
“Well, excuse me; I was just a little absent-minded, 
George.” 

At that moment the bell 'rang for dinner. 

George Denison was not, socially, a brilliant or 
fascinating man, but to know his character long 
and deeply, was to respect and love the man. 

His affections were singularly warm, and deep, 
and constant, but his habits were reticent and un- 
demonstrative, and it was with difficulty he over- 
came them. 

But he was a man honorable, generous, noble, 
with the springs of his poetry and tenderness lying 
deep and serene in his soul; not flashing up readily 
to the surface, in all graceful acts and words, but 
flowing through his life — still, strong, perpetual 
currents. 

He loved his , beautiful young wife, as such a man 
would be apt to, the woman of his heart’s election. 

“ 0, guess who ’s been here to-day ?” asked Mrs. 
Denison suddenly, in a pause of the conversation at 
dinner ; for the little cloud had quite passed out of 
her face. 

“I can’t, dear. Any body that I should be glad 
to see?” 

“I hope so. It was cousin Balph Upham.” 


251 


“tempted, but not overcome.” 

The young lawyer put down his knife and fork 
in his surprise. “What! that old beau of yours?” 

“Yes.” 

“How long did he stay?” 

“ 0 ! some time. You know we had a good deal 
to talk about — -of our old home and the days when 
we were children.” 

“Why didn’t he remain to dinner, and give me 
a chance to look at him?” 

“He had an engagement, or he would have done 
so. You ’ve never met him !” 

“Hever !” 

Then there fell a little silence betwixt the hus- 
band and wife, and, somehow, both felt uncomfort- 
able, especially the gentleman, who, half-uncon- 
sciously, linked his wife’s manner, on his return 
home, with ’this visit of her old friend; for May ’ 
had acquainted him with her engagement to her 
cousin. 

Mrs. Denison opened her lips to speak, and then 
closed them, while a thought darted through her 
mind — “What is the use of telling George? I can 
just take my ride with cousin Ralph, and say 
nothing to him about it” — for she had an intuition 
that the announcement of the invitation would not 
be agreeable to her husband. 

But she put aside the thought the next moment, 
for she was too honorable for the slightest conceal- 
ment. 

“Well, you will probably have an opportunity to 


252 “tempted, but not overcome.” 

meet cousin Ralph at tea, as he invited me to ride 
out an hour or two with him this afternoon.” 

“And you accepted the invitation?” 

“Certainly. You have no objections?” 

There was no immediate answer, but May read 
her husband’s face. 

“ 0, George, you are not so absurd as to mind my 
riding out for an hour with my cousin, and the old 
companion of all my childhood?” 

“Why don’t you add, also, yotfr old lover?” 

The blood flashed into the lady’s cheek; for the 
speech wounded and irritated her; and it was one 
that, in a better mood, her husband would not have 
made. 

“It would not be very wise or delicate for me to 
say it before a jealous husband.” 

The answer stung him. “You can apply what 
terms you like to me, Mrs. Denison; I simply wish 
to know if you accepted the invitation?” 

“Of course I did!” She said it defiantly, tapping 
her little feet on the carpet. “Have you any ob- 
jections to urge?” 

“No, you will do as you like; I never laid my 
commands upon my wife. It is against my prin- 
ciples.” 

The dinner was finished in silence; George Deni- 
son sat stern and pale, May flushed and lowering; 
and the husband rose from the table and went out 
without so much as bidding his wife good-after- 


noon. 


253 


“tempted, but not overcome.” 

“It was outrageous, cruel!” exclaimed Mrs. Den- 
ison, as she walked up and down the room, slip- 
ping the rings round her small fingers, while the 
tears stood still on her cheeks. “To think he was 
angry because I am going out with cousin Ralph! 
I shall just have my own way for once. 0, dear! 
if things had only turned out differently!” She 
did not finish the sentence; she was fairly fright- 
ened at the angry, repellant feelings which gath- 
ered gloomily in her heart against her husband. 

And as Mrs. Denison leaned her head on the 
marble table, a book which her arm brushed away 
fell heavily at her feet. Sh^jfic ked it up. It was 
a small prayer-book, with covers of crimson velvet. 
The leaves had dropped open, and her eyes fell 
upon the marriage service, and those solemn, mys- 
terious words flashed through her soul — 11 And live 
t ogether according to God's holy ordinance .” _ 

They stilled the storm of passion and pride, of 
gloom and bitterness, which had gathered in her 
soul. Mrs. Denison sat down and thought what 
depth and holiness of meaning dwelt in those words, 
and what that sacrament was which set them twain 
apart, and shut them up from the world — husband 
and wife. 

11 And live together according to God's holy ordi- 
nance ,” not simply in word and deed, but in thought, 
in feeling, in spirit , forbidding all wanderings of the 
heart, all foolish imaginations, making each to the 
other tender, pitiful, forgiving, self-sacrificing — 


254 “ TEMPTED, BUT NOT OVERCOME.” 

just as God, the Father, interpreted those words 
when, standing at his altar, she had taken on her 
soul the vows of her wifehood. 

There was a long, sharp struggle in Mrs. Deni- 
son’s mind ; but she was a Christian woman, and she 
knew whence strength would come for her weak- 
ness. 

“Well, little lady, all ready for your ride?” 

Ealph Upham asked the question in his pleasant, 
assured way, as he twisted the cord of his whip 
round the handle. 

There was a little pause, and a little flush crept 
up and settled itself in the sweet face. Then the 
answer came, low and steadfast — “Ealph, you will 
have to excuse me from riding out with you to- 
day.” 

“Why, May, is it possible you are not going 
with me !” surprise, disappointment, and chagrin 
combining in the tones. 

“There are reasons, Ealph, and good ones, which 
I do not consider myself at liberty to mention, 
which make it best for me to ask you to excuse 
me.” 

“Can’t do it, May,” in that graceful, positive, 
off-hand way that was usually so irresistible with 
ladies. “I’ve set my mind on the ride, and now 
you won’t disappoint a poor fellow, will you, that ’s 
come two thousand miles for this little bit of enjoy- 
ment ?” 


255 


“tempted, but not overcome.” 

It was hard to resist the look which gave the 
right point and emphasis to these words; but Mrs. 
Denison did not waver. “Ralph,” she began. 

But he broke in, taking the soft fingers — “Come 
now, May, you won’t be so absurd or squeamish as 
to refuse to give me, your brother, this little ride, 
for the sake of those other long-ago rides that one 
of us, at least, can never forget?” 

It was harder still to resist this last tone and 
look; but if she faltered a moment her voice was 
steady and earnest as it answered — “I ^have n ot 
d eclined your invitati on, Ralph, without duly con- 
sidering it, and therefore it can be of no use to 
^ urge it.” 

Ralph Upham’s handsome face darkened, and his 
eyes flamed out suddenly. “I see the drift of all 
this, May. Your husband is n’t willing to trust his 
wife with me for an hour. I do hate to have a 
man set so low a value on himself that he ’s afraid 
his wife may fall in love with an old friend, if they 
happen to be brought together for an hour.” 

Ralph Upham had gone further, and revealed 
more of his true character in his disappointment 
and chagrin than he intended. 

Mrs. Denison lifted her eyes, and confronted her 
guest with a quiet, steadfast gaze; he would not 
have known how much he had stirred her if it had 
not been for the deep flush which had run into her 
cheeks. 

“Ralph, you forget that George Denison is my 


256 u TEMPTED, BUT NOT OVERCOME.” 

husband, and that you must not speak t hus of him, 
inhi s own house ^to his wife.” 

No man would be likely to after hearing those 
tones. 

Ealph Upham was thoroughly crest-fallen; but 
minds like his are seldom susceptible of real contri- 
tion, and it was with a feeling of petty anger and 
wounded vanity that he answered: “I beg your 
pardon, Mrs. Denison; I shall never offend you so 
again. Good- afternoon;” and he turned toward the 
door. 

And then the memory of their childhood, and her 
father’s love for Ealph Upham, came over May 
Denison’s soul, and she sprang toward him with 
outstretched hand. 11 Ealph, do not let us part in 
anger. Come back and take tea with us to-night, 
and you and George shall be friends.” 

“ Thank you; I shall leave the city to-night. I 
wish you all happiness and prosperity, May;” but, 
somehow, the tones belied the words, and so did the 
cold, polite touch of his fingers as he bade her good- 
afternoon. 

“ What ! I did n’t expect to find you returned so 
soon — and alone?” 

George Denison said these words as he opened the 
door of the sitting-room, and found his wife seated 
by the window with her sewing, as sweet and per- 
fect a little home picture as ever gladdened the 
heart of a husband; and, somehow, it took away 


“ TEMPTED, BUT NOT OVERCOME.” 257 

half the coldness and bitterness which had been in 
his heart that afternoon. 

“ Cousin Balph stayed only a few minutes,” an- 
swered Mrs. Denison. 

There was a little pause. The young husband 
did not come forward and kiss his wife, as was his 
habit. He removed the papers from his pocket and 
laid them on the table. 

“Did you have a pleasant ride?” He asked the 
question coldly. 

“I haven’t been to ride, George.” 

“Haven’t been to ride!” — facing square about 
and looking in her face. 

“No.” 

“ Did n’t your friend come for you ?” 

“Yes.” 

“And why did you decline going with him?” 

She opened her lips to speak, but something shut 
the words back in her thoughts. 

Her husband saw it; he came toward her and 
laid his hand softly on her bright hair. 

“May, was it for my sake?” his voice was 
scarcely above a whisper, and it was not just 
steady. 

She bowed her head. 

The young husband lifted her silently in his 
arms, and sat down in the chair; he held her very 
close to him, and he whispered softly : 

“My own, precious wife!” 

Then her tears broke out, a quick torrent ; bqt 


258 “tempted, but not overcome.” 

they were tears in which was neither sorrow nor 
shame — tears of peace and gladness — and they 
flowed amidst sweet, soothing caresses, that healea 
whatever of pain was left in May Denison’s heart. 

And at last, when the tears were over, or only 
hung in still, bright drops on her lashes, she told 
her husband all that had been in her heart that 
day. 

“Will you forgive me, George?” 

And his eyes — those deep, beautiful, brown 
eyes — made full and satisfactory answer. 

And sitting there they held, afterward, a long, 
sincere, loving talk, such as two can have who come 
out from doubt and darkness into perfect knowledge 
and peace — and love , which comprehends both the 
others. 

If And May Denison le arned then , as she neve r had 
before, how her husband loved her, and what she 
was to him. 

And when, in the bright, serene years of her 
after wed ded life, May D enison looked back upon 
that^ day, she blessed God that wh en she was 
“tempted” she was not “o verc ome of e vil.” 

0, young wife, reading this story, has it for you, 
too, neither message nor warning? 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 


CHAPTER I. 

“It's two cents for foot-passengers." 

It is very singular, but I hear those tones still; 
the small, sweet, susceptible voice, winding in and 
out of the delicate syllables, and I see the little, 
brown, thin hand which was thrust up at the toll- 
gate. I was sixteen years old at that time, and I 
have doubled the years since then; but the little 
hand is before my eyes now, and the voice, sweet 
as an old tune, in my ear still. I see the old turn- 
pike road, too, which I had come upon suddenly, 
twisting itself like a rumpled brown ribbon along 
the hills and among the pasture-fields on either side. 

“You’re rather small to tend toll-gate," I said, 
as I slipped the money into the child’s hand. 

She looked up, and smiled a smile that was not 
completed on the lips, but ran up into all the dark, 
sunburnt features, and did for them what sunlight 
does for Catawba wine, and emphasized itself in the 
eyes; which were large, and of a kind of brown or 
dark agate. 


259 


260 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 


“0 no! I shall be eleven years old next Au- 
gust” — with an air which said her age ought to 
prove her a person of good judgment — one who 
might be trusted in almost any important conjunc- 
tions or relations. 

I was amused at her half-childish ; half-mature 
manner, which latter would have sat rather comic- 
ally upon her if it had not been for her extreme 
sincerity; and I was about to answer her remark 
with another, when a wagon drove up with a farmer, 
who was evidently a neighbor, for he asked in a 
loud tone after “Mrs. Plummers rheumatiz,” and 
how the seine was coming on; and the little girl 
darted into the house, and I kept on my way. 

On what very small, hidden springs does God 
turn the great events of our lives! That very 
morning my grandfather Bryant had shown me a 
large seal ring which had belonged to his youngest 
son, my uncle John, who died in his early manhood, 
smitten by a sudden fever in the East Indies. 

“It just fits my fore-finger” — as it slid easily 
over the joint. 

My grandfather looked at it tenderly. “Poor 
boy!” he said. “He used to wear it on his little 
one.” And he shook his fine old gray head. “You 
had better let me keep it for you a little longer, 
Bryant; I’m afraid it will slip off your finger.” 

“Well, let me have it an hour or two, grandpa.” 
I had my way, as I always did. 

But a little while later, a fancy seized me to go 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 


261 


off into the woods; and I had rambled farther than 
I had expected, and came out upon the turnpike 
three miles from my grandfather's. 

I was passing the Summer at Long wood. My 
father had conceived a dread that I inherited some- 
thing of my mother’s delicacy of physique, because 
I had her features, and he had sent me up into 
the country in hope that fresh, bracing air and daily 
exercise would counteract any tendency to disease. 
But the fears were unnecessary in my case; if my 
mother had given me her face and figure, I had my 
father’s stamina of constitution. 

I was his idol. All the love which was not 
buried in the grave of his girl wife was poured on 
the head of the child she left him. My father was 
a very rich man, twenty years my mother’s senior, 
proud, stately, reticent. I had been nursed in 
luxury and indulgence of the most debilitating 
kind. I was selfish, exacting, and impulsive, yet, 
on the whole, a good-natured boy; I made every 
body’s ease or comfort subordinate to my own wishes 
or whims; but it was a habit with me, and I was 
unconscious of it. I was naturally studious, and 
outdoor life in the woods and fields was a perfect 
passion with me,* and saved me from becoming 
effeminate. 

My father had found my mother in the first flush 
of womanhood at her country home, at Longwood, 
where he was stopping for a week. People said 
that her beauty won his heart, but this was not all 


262 THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 

the truth; her graciousness of soul, the gentleness 
and beauty of her life, gained for her what her face 
never could, with its delicate, sweet outlines, its 
“gentian eyes," and its marvelous sweetness of ex- 
pression, which made the face of my mother seem 
like the face of an angel. 

“See here, you must have dropped your ring 
just after you paid me the money, for I found it on 
the ground.” The little girl panted out the words, 
breathless with her long run, for I was nearly half 
a mile from the toll-gate. 

“So I must” — taking the ring. “Dear me, what 
a run you have had! How did you know it was 
mine?” 

“I saw it on your finger when you paid me. 
O-h!” This last word, which suddenly shut off the 
rest of her sentence, ran through her lips in a 
groan, and her forehead contracted with sharp, sud- 
den pain. 

“What is the matter?” I asked, in much con- 
cern. 

“Why, you see, I stumbled over a stone, and 
I ’ve hurt my ankle, for it aches.” And here the 
tears forced themselves into the brown eyes. 

They touched me, »for I was ' very sensitive to 
suffering. “ Come and sit down on the stone fence,” 
I said, for it ran low along the side of the road, 
and I helped her to it, and sat down beside her. 
“You're very, very kind to bring me my ring; but 
I ’m sorry you ’ve hurt vourself.” 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 263 

“I was in such a hurry, you know." 

“Does your ankle hurt you?" 

“0 yes, hard!” 

“It 's too bad! What can I do for you?” 

“Nothing, I guess, thank you.” But she winced 
with the pain as she said the words. 

“ If you ’ll let me hold you so that you can rest 
your ankle here on the rail, it ’ll feel easier.” 

“I’m afraid I ’m too heavy.” 

“No.” 

I lifted her up gently, for she was a light little 
creature, and seated her on my knee, and she rested 
her foot on the rail. 

“There, now, doesn’t that feel better?” 

“Yes, a great deal.” Then she looked in my face 
with her bright, deep, unabashed eyes. “You are 
very kind to me!” she said. 

Nobody had ever spoken such words to me be- 
fore. People had caressed and flattered me, but it 
was almost the first time in my life that I had ever 
had the luxury of doing good to another. 

“I think it is you who have been kind to me.” 
And I removed her brown gingham sun-bonnet, and 
smoothed her hair. 

Then we fell to talking — and I learned that the 
little girl’s name was Margaret Willoughby; that 
her father and mother were dead; that she had 
neither brother nor sister, and lived with her 
grandmother, who kept the toll-gate, and knit 
seines for the farmers to go fishing in the Summer. 


264 THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 

They were very, very poor folks, indeed, Margaret 
said, with a sweet, earnest gravity on her little 
face; still her grandmother had managed to buy 
her, that Summer, a strawbonnet, trimmed with 
white ribbon, and a pink lawn dress, and a pair of 
morocco shoes; and it was her belief and convic- 
tion that she looked as nice as the other little girls, 
when she and grandma went on Sundays to the 
brown-stone meetin’-house on the green. 

I drank all this in greedily. It was a new reve- 
lation of life to me; and the perfect freshness of 
the child — the entire simplicity and earnestness 
with which she confided to me her history and her 
heart, drew me toward her; and I kept on ques- 
tioning her further, and watching the quick changes 
that came and went in her face, with her bright, 
quick, intelligent answers. 

At last she rose up hastily, “ 0, what will grand- 
ma say 'cause I'm gone so!” But with her first 
step a sudden pain shot through her ankle. 

“Margaret, you can’t go home alone; I’ll walk 
with you; lean on me:” and I slipped my arm 
round her waist, and half-carried, half-led the light 
figure along, so that little weight came on the 
sprained ankle. “Now, supposing, Margaret,” I 
said, as we moved slowly on, “that you were very 
rich, and could have every thing you wanted to, 
what would you do with your money first ?” 

She twisted the strings of her gingham sun-bonnet 
a few moments, thoughtfully, around her fingers, 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 265 

and then she looked up with a sudden light over 
her face. 

“0, I know!” 

“Well, tell me.” 

“I 'd jest have some new dresses, and go to the 
academy on the hill ; and I 'd buy a whole lot of 
new books to read. You see we have n't but about 
a dozen at home, and I 've read ’em over and over.” 

“ I ’ve got more than you could read in a dozen 
years, at home; and I '11 send you a little library.” 

How her eyes shone and danced! Then she an- 
swered in her sweet, grave way, “I thank you; 
more than I can tell, I thank you!” then, after a 
little pause, “Can you spare so many, though?” 

“0, yes; I can get more easily enough.” 

She looked up in my face with a searching curi- 
osity, but she did not speak. 

“What are you thinking about me, Margaret?” 

“That you must be rich.” 

“How do you know?” 

“0, I can tell! I al’ays knows rich folks!” 

“ Do n't you like them ?” 

“Not very often ; they 're so proud.” 

“Am I proud?” 

The same searching look into my face; but this 
time there was a doubt in her eyes. “You look so; 
but you do n't act so.” 

It was a delicate compliment, and I thanked her 
for it. 

We had now reached the toll-gate; and a little 


266 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 


old woman in a white cap and a calico short-gown 
put her head out of the front door of the little 
yellow, one-story house that sat close to the gate. 

“0, Maggie, child, I didn’t know what had taken 
you;” and she stopped short on seeing me. 

“ Why, grandma, I had to run a long ways be- 
fore I could get to him with the ring, and I ’ve 
sprained my ankle, and he had to come home with 
me.” 

“Dear me!” said the old woman, inspecting me 
with her dim eyes, on this informal introduction — 
“I’m sorry she ’s made you so much trouble.” 

“It’s of no consequence whatever, ma’am, only I 
think her ankle may require immediate care.” 

The old lady invited me to walk in, and her 
granddaughter indorsed the invitation with her eyes. 

But the long Summer day was leaning toward the 
night, and I had a walk of three miles before me; 
so I declined the invitation, but promised to accept 
it during the week; and I took leave of the old 
lady and the little girl, and went up the old turn- 
pike road, laying plans to serve my new acquaint- 
ance, and musing on all she had told me; and the 
voices of the coming evening began to wake up 
prophetically in the woods, but no voice whispered 
to my soul that God had sent his angel to walk 
with me that day! 

On reaching home I learned that a letter had 
been received from my father, stating that his busi- 
ness required his going abroad immediately, and 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 


267 


that he had concluded to have me accompany him, 
as the time of his return was somewhat indennite, 
and I could pursue my studies in Europe as well as 
in America. I was to leave my grandfather’s the 
next day. 

I have quite often wondered that in the midst of 
the interest and excitement which this news occa- 
sioned, the little girl at the toll-gate did not quite 
escape my mind ; but she did not. I had a private 
interview with my grandfather, and related to him 
the history of my meeting with Margaret Wil- 
loughby, and succeeded in awakening the old gen- 
tleman’s interest in my little protege, and obtaining 
his promise that he would send her for two years 
to the academy on the hill. 

The four days which intervened before our de- 
parture were occupied with the hurry and bustle of 
preparation; but I managed to find time to prepare 
a large box of books, of a miscellaneous kind, poems, 
histories, stories, etc., which were duly sent to my 
grandfather’s care, for the little girl at the toll-gate. 


-o- 


CHAPTEB, II. 

“Come, Bryant, put your book down, and hold 
this skein of silk for me, please.” 

She said the words in her pretty, half-peremp- 
tory, half-coaxing way, as she came toward the 


268 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 


lounge where I was lying close by the open window, 
reading, alternately, the page of that beautiful 
Spring day, and the page of the book which I held 
in my hand. 

One, somehow, seemed to harmonize and fit into 
the other. The face of the late May, looking down 
on the Summer, had caught the glory and the glad- 
ness thereof ; the fruit-trees were puffed and fluted 
with blossoms, and full of the song of birds; the 
dozing winds breathed sweet fragrances into the 
window, and the sky wore the bright, radiant smile 
of the completed Spring upon its .face. 

And the book which I was reading wore a smile, 
too, upon its face — the smile of one whose hope and 
whose trust were in the love of our Father who is 
in heaven. 

The volume was a collection of miscellaneous 
stories and poems, and the unknown writer was 
evidently a woman, and in her youth. There was 
a glow and freshness about her genius which could 
only belong to the May of life. There was a little 
throb of sadness, too, running through the pages, 
which touched, with their soft, healing, wondrous 
skill, the loves and the sorrows of human life. 
Much the writer had rejoiced; somewhat she had 
suffered; but the sunshine and the rains had alike 
nourished the sweet, gentle, loving womanhood 
which warmed and sanctified the pages. I thought 
all this before Annie, the wife of my cousin Fred- 
erick Mathers, came to my lounge, and kneeled down 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 


269 


by it, with a skein of silk slipped around her dainty 
fingers. She had a kind of passion for crocheting 
and embroidering, and for all those nicknacks 
with which women are forever busying themselves. 

Annie was a bright, merry, good-hearted little 
thing; no great depth or force to her, to be sure; 
but she was just such a wife as Fred needed — full 
of domestic tact and taste, very pretty and graceful 
withal. So she gratified him aesthetically, for he 
was naturally fastidious. 

Twelve years lay between this Spring and the 
! last one I had passed at Longwood. They had 
brought many changes to me, as they usually do to 
all lives. My grandfather had laid his gray head 
under the grasses six years before, and a sudden fit 
of apoplexy had stricken my father just as he was 
on the eve of returning to America, three years be- 
fore. 

One night, twelve months later, while I was 
traveling through the south of England, that great 
and terrible misfortune befell me, which swept out, 
for a time, all my hope and desire in life. The 
bridge over which our cars were passing broke 
down; many of the passengers were hurled over 
a precipice into the river, a hundred feet below. 
I was thrown upon a part of the bridge which re- 
mained, and I remembered nothing more. A long, 
slow illness followed. I was internally injured, my 
ankle broken, and I found myself a cripple for life — 
I believed then, a confirmed invalid. I returned to 


270 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 


America a year later, somewhat improved in health, 
but still physically a wreck of what I had been. 

Frederick Mathers, my only cousin on my father’s 
side, had been my most intimate, companion and 
friend during my boyhood; and we had kept up an 
intermittent correspondence during my residence 
abroad; for I had graduated at a German univers- 
ity. Frederick was a young physician ; he had 
married six years before, and was succeeding well 
in his profession. But he was still poor, while I 
was the only heir to my father’s wealth. 

I easily persuaded my cousin to go to Longwood, 
and take up his residence in the gray old stone 
house which my grandfather had built. We had 
the interior a little rejuvenated and modernized, 
without seriously altering its old-fashioned physi- 
ognomy — for I am no iconoclast. Early in the 
preceding March we had settled down here. It 
was the only spot on earth which was home to me. 
Fred and Annie were enchanted with their new 
residence, and we daily congratulated each other 
on the success of our project. 

“ Bryant,” Annie began, in her light, quick way, 
while the silk ran in a crimson ripple over her 
rapid fingers — “I think it’s high time you were 
waked up. You’ve just done nothing but settle 
down here over your books, ever since we got 
snugly under this blessed old roof. Fred says you 
ought to pass two-thirds of your days under the 
trees, from this time to November.” 


THE OLD TUKNPIKE HOAD. 


271 


“You mustn’t make it so pleasant in the house, 
then, that a fellow can’t muster up courage to get 
out of it.” 

“ Well, if that ’s all that ’s wanted to get you out, 
I assure you nothing shall he left undone on my 
part,” with a comical dip of her bright head, and 
an arch laugh running out of her blue eyes. 

“And accomplish it, no doubt, because you are a 
woman; but, Annie, if you get me outdoors, it 
would n’t be far or long;” and I glanced at the 
crutch which stood at the foot of the lounge. 

A little sadness crept across the brightness of her 
face; “0, yes you will, Bryant;” but the sentence 
was broken into by an urgent summons from some 
neighbor, which at once took Annie down stairs. I 
lay still, amidst the bright sunshine and the dozing 
winds, but, for a while, the thoughts which came 
over my soul were like those cold mists which sail 
in from the north-east, and cover the face of the 
earth every November. 

I thought of my bright, careless, affluent youth; 
of my proud, strong manhood, all crushed out of me 
in an hour; of the broken dreams, and health, and 
hope; of the slow life, and the crippled limb that I 
must carry to the grave; and I laid' my head back 
with a slow, weary heart-ache, and almost longed to 
die. 

And with that last thought a new light and 
warmth came through the mist, and glorified it. 
Whatsoever my life was, my death would be better 


272 THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 

for the evil that had befallen me. Had I not 
learned in that long, wasting sickness, patience and 
submission, love to God and to man? 

“ Uncle, uncle Bryant, see what I 've got for 
you!” 

A slender thread of sound came through the open 
door, and there was the soft patter of a child’s feet 
in the room, and a little head with clusters of shin- 
ing curls, and pretty red lips, that were always full 
of the motion of talk and laughter, came up to me, 
and a little hand, that was like a sea-shell, held 
up triumphantly before my eyes a cluster of white 
roses. Large, queenly, luscious flowers they were, 
their snowy blossoms, full of heavy, passionate fra- 
grance, as they lay half- sheltered in a covert of 
green leaves. 

“O, Harry, my pet, where did you get these 
beautiful roses?” 

“Miss Willoughby gave them to me,” lisped the 
voice of six Summers. 

“And who is Miss Willoughby?” 

“She’s my school-teacher, you see; and I went 
home with her to-day, and when I saw the flowers 
growing all round the front window, I spoke right 
out, ‘0 how uncle Bryant would like some of 
them!’ And Miss Willoughby smiled, and said, 

1 Would he, dear?’ And then she gave me these; 
but I knew she meant ’em for you, though she 
did n’t say so.” 

“What do you know about this Miss Willoughby, 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 273 

Annie?” I asked of Harry’s mother, when she re- 
turned to my room. 

“ Very little; I 've seen her hut once. She struck 
me as a quiet, lady-like person, a little over twenty ; 
and, altogether, her manner pleased me. She teaches 
the district school, and I sent Harry to her, just 
to get the little rogue out of the way for a few 
hours. I remember, now, that Mrs. Peekham told 
me the school-teacher’s name is Margaret Wil- 
loughby, that she writes poetry occasionally, and 
supports her grandmother, who is an infirm and 
very old woman.” 

“ Margaret Willoughby ! Margaret Willoughby !” 
The name seemed to go in slow, silver, liquid echoes 
up and down my thoughts, as though it came from 
some far country in the past, and wound through all 
the years, and called to me, soft and faintly, “ Mar- 
garet Willoughby!” 

“That 's it!” I brought my hand down suddenly, 
and with no little emphasis, on the table. 

“What’s it?” cried Annie, half-springing from 
her seat with the start I had given her. 

“ Something I ’ve found in my thoughts.” 

“Bryant, you are the oddest man alive,” an- 
swered Annie, and a laugh ran out of her lips as 
she wound Harry’s silken curls around her fingers. 
And I sat there opening and shutting my eyes, and 
thinking of that far-off day when I first met Mar- 
garet Willoughby. 

I could see it still — the old turnpike road, wind- 
18 


274 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 


ing away like a brown, crumpled ribbon through the 
green pastures, on either side, and the little girl 
at the toll-gate, with her small, tanned face and \ 
strange, bright eyes. I had not thought of it for 
years; but it all came back now, vivid as a thing ] 
of yesterday, and I recalled now a letter which my 
grandfather had written during my first year in 
Germany, in which he mentioned Margaret Wil- 
loughby, stating that he had sent her to the 
academy, and that she was a remarkably-intelli- 
gent child, and he was much interested in her. 
And that little girl had blossomed into woman* 
hood, and taught school, and wrote poetry now! 
and she had not forgotten, I had evidence of that 
in the roses that were like great snowy goblets 
pouring out delicious fragrance in the tall Venetian 
glass on the table. 

I kept my own counsel, but I resolved that not 
many days should go over my head before I looked 
on the face of Margaret Willoughby. 


CHAPTEE III. 

“ Grandma, we shall have strawberries and cream 
by week after next. I’ve been out among the 
vines, and they 're doing finely.” 

The voice fluttered out of the front window of 
the dainty little white cottage, as I stood at the 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 


275 


gate that June morning. The house looked in the 
distance like a little white cup hidden among the 
trees. It couldn’t have contained more than five 
rooms. It was picturesque enough, though, all hug- 
ged round with woodbines; and on either side of 
the grass-plat was a bed of flowers with a fringe of 
box. 

The next moment she came to the window, where 
her voice had just preceded her, and she shook out 
a table-cover of red and black, in that quick, skill- 
ful way which made one feel at once that her hands 
were used to all that kind of work. She did not 
see me, but I had a good view of her face. It was 
a strange, contradictory one; for the eyes, of a 
large, deep brown, had the look of a child — the 
look I remembered, full of wonder and wistfulness, 
with endless smiles and variations in them; but 
there was a certain gravity about the mouth, and 
a sweet seriousness about all the oval features, 
which thought, and discipline, and sorrow could 
alone have given them. It was not a handsome, 
pretty, beautiful face ; but there was a charm about 
it. So I watched her as she arranged the books on 
the table, wiping off the dust with a small cloth, 
and humming snatches of old tunes, or replying to 
some question of her grandmother’s, who must have 
been in another room, and probably a little deaf. 

At last I went up to the house, and she came to 
the door with a face full of surprise. She did not 
recognize me. 


276 THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 

“Miss Willoughby/’ I said, offering her my hand, 
“I have come to thank you for the roses you sent 
me by your little pupil, Harry Mathers, the other 
day.” 

What a leap of surprise, recognition, pleasure, 
and timidity there was in her face! Then she put 
her hands, her little, soft, warm hands in mine, and 
said, just as she would have said it thirteen years 
before, on the old turnpike — “I am very glad to 
see you, Mr. Hamilton.” 

I went into the parlor and sat down. It was 
the neatest, plainest, cosiest little spot imaginable. 
There was a dark, ingrain carpet, and cane-seat 
chairs, green lounge, and a little table covered with 
books. We sat down on the lounge. I saw her 
glance at my crutch and my crippled limb, and 
such a sweet sadness came into her eyes as I have 
seen in children’s when their mothers’ faces were 
sorrowful. 

“I thought it most likely you had forgotten us,” 
she said. 

“0, no. I remember the old turnpike road, and 
the toll-gate, and the little girl with the sprained 
ankle.” 

A smile ran into her lips and then over her face ; 
but I knew a word more would have brought some- 
thing in^o her eyes besides a smile, so I said, 
quietly, “Did you get the books I sent you?” 

She answered my question indirectly: “If you 
could have seen me the day they came, or have 


THE OLD TUKNPIKE EOAD. 


277 


known the marvelous treasures which they opened 
up to me ; if I could tell you of the new life which 
they nourished in my soul!” — she stopped here 
abruptly, but her face finished the sentence as even 
her voice could not have done. 

After this I have no remembrance of what we 
talked about, but there were few pauses in the con- 
versation, and I remained three hours. 

Margaret Willoughby was a new revelation to 
me; for, be it remembered, I have met with the 
noblest born and highest bred, the loveliest and 
most gifted women of both hemispheres; and I had 
learned what it takes so many near a lifetime to 
learn — that no grace of mien, no gift of mind or 
person, no outward adorning can make a lady ; I 
mean that sweetness and gentleness, that tender- 
ness and sympathy which Luther meant when he 
said, “The heart of a Christian woman is the sweet- 
est thing this side of heaven.” And Margaret 
Willoughby was this — a lady by the will of God! 
I knew it during that morning that we passed to- 
gether — for school had a week’s vacation. 

We rambled over many subjects, and, though I 
can not recall these, I remember perfectly the im- 
pression which Margaret Willoughby’s conversation 
left on me. What struck me at first most promi- 
nently was a kind of childish artlessness which 
wound its golden thread through her whole speech 
and manner; yet it was tempered with a sweet, 
womanly gravity, and dignity, and thoughtfulness, 


278 THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 

just as the expression in her eyes was by the rest 
of her face. Perhaps somewhat of this was owing 
to her small knowledge of the world; for she told 
me she had never been thirty miles from Longwood 
in her life. But she had read, studied, lived; and 
so she had bloomed into her young, sweet, fragrant 
womanhood like the white roses she had plucked 
for me. 

I saw the young school-teacher very often after 
this; for as the Summer grew, I gained strength of 
body and soul, and we had frequent rides together; 
and there was a little fringe of woods back of the 
small white cottage where we used to go, and sit, 
and listen to the brook, whose silver waters tangled 
themselves with gurgling leap and laughter over 
the stones; and Margaret was never weary of 
listening, with those bright child-eyes and that 
womanly face of hers, to the stories I had to tell 
her of foreign countries. She had read much and 
seen little, and this always gives to a woman a kind 
of strange, contradictory air and manner. She had 
something, too, to tell me of her life; of its strug- 
gles and aspirations, and how, after she had at- 
tended the village academy five years, she was 
offered the situation of village school-teacher, and 
since then her grandmother's increasing age and 
infirmities had rendered her unfit for any active 
cares or duties. I looked at the small trembling 
figure, and wondered at the brave, true, strong soul 
which it held. 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 


279 


“I shall leave you here to take care of your- 
selves with a great many doubts and misgivings, 
but there ’s no help for it,” said cousin Annie, as 
we all gathered in the sitting-room after tea, one 
evening just in the opening of September. She had 
been summoned to the bedside of her mother, who 
was ill — not dangerously so; but in that state of 
mingled nervous excitement and prostration which 
required her daughter’s care and society, and Fred- 
erick had given his wife “ leave of absence” for a 
month. 

We all felt sad enough at the thought of missing 
Annie’s bright face and cheery voice about the 
house, and I knew the lightness of her tones was 
assumed to hide something deeper in her voice, as 
she pushed an ottoman to her husband’s feet, and, 
throwing herself on this, rested her cheek on his 
knee, while Harry perched himself on the other. 

“ I expect Bryant and I ’ll make awkward work, 
keeping old bachelor’s hall,” laughed the young 
husband, as he smoothed the yellow silken hair 
that lay in its abundant beauty on his knee. 

“Our case looks dubious, Fred. We shall have 
nobody to scold us for not being punctual at dinner, 
or keeping the rooms in disorder — in short, for 
committing any of these numerous delinquencies by 
which the sons of Adam have managed to keep 
the tongues and tempers of the daughters of Eve in 
a constant state of excitement during the last six 
thousand years.” 


280 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 


Annie lifted her head, and shook with playful 
threatening her white hand in my face. “Bryant/’ 
she said, “I wish you would take one of those 
daughters of Eve you ’ve just maligned so to wife 
before the next twenty- four hours goes over your 
head.” 

“Thank you for your benevolent wishes. If I 
could only find her now !” 

Here Harry slipped off his father’s knee, and 
pattered up to me, and put his pretty face close to 
my ear. “Uncle Bryant,” he said, confidentially 
and earnestly, “I know of somebody you could get 
to be your wife.” 

“Who is it, my pet?” 

“Miss Margaret Willoughby.” 

How his father leaned his head back and laughed, 
while his mother clapped her hands and shouted! 

“But how do you know she’ll have me, my 
boy?” — lifting the little fellow on my knee. 

He nestled his head on my shoulder. “ I ’ll ask 
her to-morrow, and see.” 

Another peal of mirth — Annie’s sweet laughter 
tangling in and out of her husband’s. 

“Ho, thank you, Harry; I prefer to ‘ speak for 
myself’ on such a subject, or I fear that I should 
meet^with no better success than Miles Standish 
did with the Puritan maiden, Priscilla.” 

“And probably uncle Bryant will select a some- 
what different ‘maiden’ from your school-teacher, 
Harry, when he does speak for himself.” 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 281 

“ How do you mean, Annie ?’’ 

“Why, I mean different in position, family, for- 
tune, every thing. Do you know, Bryant, Mrs. 
Peekham was wondering this afternoon that you 
could visit Miss Willoughby so often. She says she 
has never had any position in Longwood, that she ’s 
low-bred, and her grandmother kept the toll-gate!" 

“And what did you tell her, Annie?" 

“0, I told her that I knew nothing about Miss 
Willoughby, having never met her but once, only 
she was a little protege of yours once, though I knew 
you had no serious intentions in that quarter." 

11 How did you know it?" 

She turned and faced me. “Why, Bryant, you 
have n’t, have you ?" 

“ It has just struck me that I have." 

“Well, that’s cool, old fellow!" It was Fred in- 
terposed here, not knowing exactly how to take me. 

“How, Bryant, are you in sober earnest?" asked 
Annie, coming over to me. 

“Yes; I think I shall take Harry’s advice, and 
ask Miss Willoughby to be my wife.” 

“0, Bryant, what will Mrs. Peekham — what 
will the world say?" 

“Do you think I should stop to inquire, Annie 
Mathers? Do you think when I found a woman 
whose soul was crowned with those rare and beau- 
tiful jewels above all price, which make a loving 
and Christian womanhood — do you think I would 
not gather her to my heart sooner than a crowned 


282 THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 

queen, and holding her there — its joy, and light, 
and completeness — do you think I should care what 
Mrs. Peekham or the world said of it?” 

“No, I wouldn’t if I were you , Bryant!” out 
spoke Annie; for her heart was full of noble and 
generous impulses that responded quickly to the 
right touch. 

“No! a thousand times no!” answered the deep, 
emphatic tones of her husband. 

And then I told them a little of all Margaret 
Willoughby had been to me; how, unconsciously, 
the knowledge and the love of her had wakened my 
•life into true and higher purpose; and how her 
sweet, childlike faith had called to mine, which lay 
cold and dormant in my soul; and how the great 
sorrow of my life had taught me, at last, a new 
submission to the will of God, our Father ; and how 
I, who once longed to die, was now willing and re- 
joiced to live for his sake. And when I concluded 
my cousins came and placed their hands in mine, 
and said, “Bryant, may you be very happy with 
the wife of your choosing!” 

I went up toward evening to the little white cot- 
tage set like a cup among the trees. Margaret was 
sprinkling a moss rose bush, in the front yard, with 
a small watering-pot. She came toward me, her 
brown eyes full of their shy smiles, and the soft 
flush going in and out of her face. She wore a lawn 
dress, with sprigs of pink scattered over the white 
ground, and the sleeves were looped back from the 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 


283 


email, white arms. We talked awhile of the sunset 
clouds, of the flowers in the yard, of the farewell of 
the Summer, and then I said to her, “I have a 
book, Miss Margaret, and out of its sweet, fresh, 
perfuming pages I have selected a little sketch 
which, with your permission, I shall read to you.” 

“ Thank you;” and we went into the parlor to- 
gether. But when I drew the book from my pocket, 
she glanced at it and said, with a sudden drawing 
in of her breath, “ 0, is that the book ?” 

“You have seen it, then?” 

“I — I have heard of it;” and she turned away, 
and seemed very intent on smoothing the folds of 
her dress. 

The book was the one which I had read that day 
that she had given Harry the roses. 

It struck me that her manner was a little sin- 
gular, but I sat down and opened the book, and she 
sat a little way from me, and listened to my read- 
ing. She sat, as I said, a little apart from me, her 
hands lying still in her lap, except when the little 
fingers fluttered restlessly against each other — for 
they had a kind of habit of motion. The sketch 
was a very brief one — a little, exquisite, pathetic 
picture of a country home, and hearts made very 
heavy with the anguish of misapprehension and 
parting, and glad unspeakably with the sudden joy 
of meeting and reconciliation. 

“Isn't it a touching little thing?” I asked, as I 
closed. 


284 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 


“I — do you like it so much?” and her face was 
radiant. 

“Yes — don’t you?” 

She opened her lips — her blushes came and 
went — suddenly it flashed across me — 

“Margaret, you wrote this book /” 

She tried to look astonished, but she was not 
used to dissemble. She buried her face in her 
hands, and broke into sobs. 

“Margaret, dear Margaret, have I no right to 
your secret — the right of one who would be nei- 
ther friend nor brother, but more and better than 
these ?” 

She understood me, but only sobs kept swaying 
back and forth the small, slender figure. 

Once, and once only, I tried her. “Margaret, 
you do not answer me. Is it because you can not 
love a man who is crippled for life? whose health 
can never be” — 

Her face sprang up from her hands. The tears 
were held in check upon it. 

“0, Mr. Hamilton, you do not think so meanly 
of me as that!” and I was answered. 

Then, for the first time, I gathered her to my 
heart, and kissed the red blossom of her lips, and 
thanked God that she belonged to me for life; 
that she would walk by my side, true, tender, 
sweet, loving till death took us apart — my wife, 
in the best and holiest meaning of that blessed 
word. 


THE OLD TURNPIKE ROAD. 


285 


Two years she has been this — two years which 
have taught me how priceless was the pearl I 
found on the old turnpike road — the pearl that 
I found, and wore on my heart — Margaret Wil- 
loughby. 































































■ 










































































































































































- 
























































































































































. I 


















ONE MAN’S WORK. 


“I thought I heard you call to me," said the 
gentleman, turning back. 

“0 no — no — I — you are mistaken, sir!" an- 
swered the lady, in a fluttered, half-coherent man- 
ner, as she stood in her front door. 

The gentleman lifted his hat with a grave 
courtesy, which indicated that he was not on famil- 
iar terms with the lady; she bowed, and as he 
turned, still a little irresolutely, the front door 
closed, and there was no more to be done or said. 

And yet thi3 man, Cleveland King, did not feel 
quite assured by the lady’s answer, as he went with 
his firm, rapid step down the broad pavement, with 
the row of gas-lights making a long golden perspec- 
tive on his right hand. His hearing could not have 
deceived him. The lady whom he had just left at 
her residence, had certainly called to him, and the 
voice was one of involuntary terror, bewilderment, 
appeal, such as one might make in the depths of a 
dark forest, or on the verge of some beetling preci- 
pice, to which they had wandered, to find the sands 
crumbling under them. The voice haunted Cleve- 


288 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


land King, as lie kept on his way to his sister’s, at 
whose house he had promised to pass the night, for 
her husband had left town for a few days on busi- 
ness. Cleveland King was not a man to shut out 
from his thoughts any call of helplessness or suffer- 
ing, and this one somehow went beyond his thoughts 
into his heart, and troubled it. 

And yet, what could he do, and what did it 
mean? Of the lady, Mrs. Kortham, he knew very 
little. He had not met her more than twice before 
the present evening; for Cleveland King was very 
far from a man of society. The lady’s face had 
struck him the first time he saw it; it was a fine, 
delicate, sweet face, without much glow or bloom 
about it, but one that, in any crowd, would have 
attracted and impressed you. It was a young face 
too, so young that Cleveland King was surprised to 
learn that the lady was married. Afterward he 
had met her riding out with her husband, a man 
whose life could not lie far on the hither side of 
fifty, a hard, pompous, purse-proud man, as Cleve- 
land read in the first glance at his face, and he had 
thought to himself, as the two rolled past him in 
their luxurious carriage, behind their magnificent 
bays — “That woman can’t be happy with that 
coarse, hard man. Her face shows she has fine 
enough intuitions to repel him. It ’s another mat- 
rimonial bargain — money on one side, grace and 
beauty on the other; and ambitious and heartless 
relations to manage the whole thing.” 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


289 


Cleveland King was a man of keen observation, 
of fine, generous nature. He was young still, al- 
though by his own talents he had made a consider- 
able fortune, and was now silent partner in an old, 
wealthy house; but he was among the very few 
men into whose soul the greed and the lust of gold 
had not entered. He had settled in his soul just 
how much and how little it could do for him; and 
he resolved that the ambition of his life should not 
be to become a millionaire. 

He was only a little way among his thirties; he 
resolved to indulge his natural tastes for reading 
and study, of which his previous business life had 
afforded him but little opportunity; so he withdrew 
from comparatively-active life in the house where 
he had passed his youth. His partners ridiculed 
and remonstrated, but he was not a man to be 
easily swerved from an object on which he had set 
his mind. 

“It ’s a shame!” they said to him. “You might 
be one of the richest men in the city in ten years.” 

“Exactly, but I want to be something more than 
a rich man when I die.” The old gentlemen opened 
their eyes. It was a new philosophy for the house 
on Wall-street. 

And so, Cleveland King reached the house of his 
sister, with the fair face of the lady he had left 
standing before him all the way, just as she stood 
in the front door, with that sudden look of anguish, 
doubt, and terror leaping out of it, just as tpe cry 

19 


290 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


did out of her voice. He had seen it for a moment 
as he turned back when that cry reached him. 

“ Perhaps I’ll mention it to Julia,” thought the 
young man, as he rang the door-bell of his sister’s 
stately dwelling. 

“Why, Cleveland, I could n’t think what had 
kept you out so late !” said Mrs. Gresham, as her 
brother entered the sitting-room, where she was 
awaiting him a little impatiently. 

They were as unlike in person as in character — 
this brother and sister; and yet it was natural they 
should be fond of each other, as they were the only 
living members of their family. 

Mrs. Julia Gresham was a couple of years older 
than her brother, a tall, dark, stylish woman; a 
practical, ambitious, worldly-wise one; a woman 
whose creed was founded on real, substantial, exter- 
nal good. She believed in, she reverenced wealth, 
position, prosperity. She had married a rich and 
highly-respectable gentleman, who proved himself a 
somewhat dull, but good-natured, indulgent hus- 
band; and they lived in very handsome style, and 
had charming receptions, and moved in the best 
society; for in these things consisted the life — after 
all, the paltry, barren, worldly life — of Mrs. Rufus 
Gresham. 

“Yes, Julia, I ’m sorry to have kept you waiting; 
but I had a note this morning for a little informal 
company at the Merwins’ this evening. If it had 
been on a larger scale I should certainly have de- 


ONE MANS WORK. 


291 


cuned. tor you know what a bore a large party is 
to me; out l could find no reasonable excuse, and 
h*‘U after all, a pleasant, social, reasonable time.” 

Mrs. Gresham smiled. 

“J should know any where that those adjectives 
came from you and nobody else.” 

And Cleveland smiled in return. 

“ Well, they are just what all adjectives should 
be, simple, truthful exponents of facts. We leave 
the intensified and inflated ones to your sex.” 

Mrs. Gresham respected and feared her brother 
a little. He was a profound puzzle to her — a real 
provocation sometimes — but she occasionally got 
glimpses, through him, of a better, higher life than 
the one in which she revolved. He frequently held 
up certain of the weaknesses, foibles, and sins of her 
sex in general, and of her set in particular, in 
a half-ironical, half-protesting way, which placed 
them before her in such a light that she could not 
help seeing and half acknowledging them. 

“Whom among the sex you profess to despise 
did you meet this evening?” asked the lady, not, as 
usual, taking up the gauntlet in defense thereof. 

“That last question of yours involves a most 
specious sophistry, my dear. Instead of despising 
your sex, it is because I so honor and reverence it 
from my inmost soul, that it is a continual pain and 
anguish to me to see .woman so disloyal to her high- 
est self and mission on the earth, absorbed in self- 
ishness, in petty rivalries, and aims, and ambi- 


292 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


tions — false to duty, to herself, to her God — ; t ?» 
because that I see these things daily that l oome- 
times speak of woman with irony and bitterness, 
instead of with that tenderness and reverence witn 
which man always should.” 

“I suppose you include your sister among tnose 
women whom you condemn?” said Mrs. Gresham, 
with a little conscious look. 

“ Yes ; I will not spoil a story for relation’s sakes. 
I include my sister among those very women.” 

Mrs. Gresham did not seem indignant. Indeed, 
there was an expression of softness, which almost 
touched on humility, on her usually-complacent 
face — an expression which was never seen there 
unless it might be in some conversation like the 
present with her brother. 

“ Well, I will not dispute the position you assign 
me now; and, in return for my good nature, do 
answer my question.” 

“ I beg your pardon ; I ’ve really forgotten it, 
Julia.” 

“Did you wait on any lady home from this 
party?” — changing somewhat the spirit and form 
of her first question. 

“Yes; Mrs. Northam.” 

“ Mrs. Nortliam — a married woman — Cleveland !” 

“Why not? her husband was absent; the young 
ladies seemed mostly supplied with company, and so 
I volunteered myself for Mrs. Northam’s service, as 
her husband was not there ; and she did not wait 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


293 


for her carriage, but left early, as I did. What do 
you know of the lady?” 

<e Not much, except that the Horthams move in 
tko very best society. She was married about two 
years ago, and her husband can’t be far from thirty 
years her senior. She was an orphan, and her 
uncle, who was her guardian, it is said, helped him- 
self to most of her property — which wasn’t large — 
and then half allured, half compelled her into this 
marriage. ' She was a prize for Robert Northam. 
I think he is proud of her ; but the marriage could 
never have been a congenial one for the lady.” 

The gentleman did not answer. He was debat- 
ing with himself whether he should relate to his 
sister what had transpired that evening. She looked 
at him and was silent for a little while; at last he 
lifted his eyes from the carpet and met hers. 

“What are you thinking about me, Julia?” 

“ That I wonder if you ’ll ever get married. 
Shall you, Cleveland?” 

The gentleman drew a deep sigh. 

“ I do n’t know,” speaking half to himself. “ If I 
can ever find the right sort of a woman — a woman, 
earnest, tender, noble — whose influence and atmos- 
phere about my life will tend to stimulate and nour- 
ish the best part of me; who will, in short, make 
me a better man, and to whom I can be what, by 
right of my manhood I should be — strength, pro- 
tection, love — then, surely, I shall marry her, 
Julia.” 


294 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


“ I wonder if there is a woman made especiali/ 
to suit you ! I ’d go a good ways to see her.” 

Cleveland looked at his watch, and rose up. He 
had made up his mind to communicate nothing to 
his sister. She had not the tender sympathies to 
enter into it, and all he could say would only stim- 
ulate her wonder and curiosity. So he bade Mrs. 
Gresham good-night, and went to his own chamber; 
and in his prayer before he slept, Cleveland King 
remembered before God the face of the pale young 
wife, as he had seen her standing in the front door, 
and he prayed him whatsoever bewilderment or an- 
guish, whatsoever fear or suffering was about her 
life, to lead her in the right way, the way of duty, 
of light, and of peace. 

The next day, when Cleveland King walked 
down to the office, the face and voice of Mrs. 
Northam was still in his thoughts. They haunted 
and troubled, and appealed to him through all the 
business of the morning; and he found himself fre- 
quently pondering the question — “Can I do any 
thing to aid or to serve this woman?” 

It was a delicate matter to man?.ge, and Cleve- 
land King remained longer in doubt over it than he 
often was over any course of action. But he said 
to himself at last — “My motive is one that I am 
not ashamed of before God — I need not be before 
man. It is simply to render this woman any serv- 
ice of advice or help which some strait of her life 
may require. I will make some errand for calling 


ONE MANS WORK. 


295 


on her at this time, and then if I watch for an op- 
portunity, and God wills, the way will probably be 
opened for me to say all that is needed. And so 
Cleveland King having come to his determination, 
acted upon it at once. The young man did not 
wait long in the luxurious parlors, where taste 
and wealth had combined to produce splendor and 
beauty. The rich carpets, where the feet seemed 
sinking into forest mosses, the white gleam of the 
statues in the corners, the glow of the rose-wood fur- 
niture, the gilded walls flushed with rare pictures, 
and the lace curtains which seemed like heaps of 
snowy mist: Cleveland King had only time to 
linger a moment on these, when the mistress of all 
this splendor made her appearance. 

That young, fair face — that graceful, girlish 
figure, it seemed, somehow, as if the years had 
not yet fitted her for her place and station, yet she 
came forward with a grave, easy dignity, and gave 
her hand to her guest with a graciousness and self- 
possession which showed she was used to doing the 
honors of her stately home. 

Mrs. Northam could not, however, quite disguise 
her surprise on seeing her guest, but she was too 
well-bred a woman to manifest it in any way which 
would embarrass her guest; so the conversation slip- 
ped into easy and general channels. 

Cleveland’s ostensible reason for this call was to 
learn the address of a mutual friend, which he was 
really desirous of obtaining, and which Mrs. Kor- 


296 


ONE MANS WORK. 


tham furnished him at once. As she lifted her face 
to him in the interest of their conversation, he 
watched it narrowly, and he saw, at times, a 
troubled, anxious look flit over it; sometimes the 
look deepened into pain, and the deep-blue eyes 
would seem to be wandering after her thoughts, 
and Mrs. Northam would seem unconscious of her 
guest. Then she would rouse herself with an effort 
and take up the thread of conversation, or intro- 
duce some new topic with easy grace, and yet, all 
the time, it was evident to Cleveland King that 
some dread and pain lay cold and heavy on the 
heart of his hostess. At last, in a little pause of 
the conversation, he spoke: 

“d feel singularly impelled to say to you, Mrs. 
Nor tham, that the ostensible reason of my calling is 
not the real one. I am aware, too, that my con- 
duct must seem singular, and probably intrusive to 
a stranger, but I have, somehow, a conviction that 
in this matter you will not misinterpret me or my 
motives?” 

He paused; the 'fair young face of his hostess was 
lifted in wonder to his, and it seemed to him in 
fear — not of him, but of something beyond; yet 
she answered simply and earnestly to his question: 

“I do not think I shall, Mr. King!” 

“Well, then, I am emboldened to speak to you 
frankly and plainly, trusting that you will receive 
it in just the spirit that I speak. I have been 
haunted all day by a singular feeling that you are 


ONE man's work. 297 

in some trouble, some strait or trial in which it is 
possible you may have no friend to consult or to 
aid you; or those who have the right and the au- 
thority to do this, may for some reason be excluded 
from your confidence. I do not seek it — I have no 
claim to do it, only if you can trust me as a friend, 
I am willing to serve you by word or deed, and I 
shall ask no questions, any further than may be 
necessary. You yourself know whether my suspi- 
cions are true, and if they are not, forgive a stran- 
ger whose only motive was to serve you as a 
friend.” 

Doubt, amazement, indecision had by turns strug- 
gled for the mastery in Mrs. Northam’s face. As 
her guest closed his singular offer she tried to 
speak, but a sudden sob swelled in her throat and 
mastered the words — she broke down into a con- 
vulsion of sobs and tears. Her guest looked at her, 
and a feeling of pity, that was almost tenderness, 
for the forlorn young creature in the midst of her 
splendor came over him. He longed to shield her 
from, or avert the invisible evil which was hanging 
over her young life. Instinctively he reached out 
his hand to lay it on hers, and then he remembered 
she was the wife of another man, and he withdrew 
it; for Cleveland King was an honest man, a true 
man to the core; no word or act would he bestow 
on any woman, which, were that woman his wife, 
he would hesitate to see her receive from any other 
man; and so he was always a “law unto himself. 


298 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


At last the storm cleared its way into calm. 
Mrs. Northam looked up into Cleveland King’s 
face. How those earnest blue eyes searched and 
penetrated it! Her woman’s intuition was true; it 
was a strong, manly, honest face; a face to be be- 
lieved in, trusted in any temptation, in any con- 
juncture of trying and evil circumstances ; a face 
that bore witness to a soul which would be true to 
itself, and so, true to all men and women besides. 
Mrs. Northam drew a little nearer. 

“ Yes,” she said, in a low, rapid, frightened voice, 
“ I am in terrible trouble, and there is no one in 
the whole world to help me.” 

“I felt it ever since I heard your voice call to 
me, and saw your face for a moment last night.” 

“0, sir, I know I told you a falsehood; but 
really I was so confused and frightened I didn’t 
know what I said; and it all came upon me so 
sudden, too — a great avalanche of anguish that I 
couldn’t bear — and so, as you turned away the 
cry leaped out of my lips before I was aware. It 
flashed up to me in a moment all the good and kind 
things I had heard of you, from the children of the 
Sabbath school of which you are superintendent, 
and others ; and I felt so helpless and desolate, and 
I longed so for some counsel and sympathy, and it 
seemed so hard to struggle on any longer with this 
terrible burden, and I wished for the moment, with 
an unutterable wish, that you were my friend, whom 
I could go to, and confide in, at this time; and 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


299 


then, before I knew or could help it, the cry you 
heard leaped out of my heart.” 

It seemed now that these words leaped out of her 
heart too, she spoke in such a low, rapid tone, as 
though they came almost without any volition of 
hers, and she dared not stop to reflect on the con- 
sequences of what she was saying. There was a 
little silence. 

“God must have sent me here this morning,” 
thought Cleveland King. 

“And so you understand, Mrs. Northam, that I 
heard the cry, and have come here now to answer 
it, by serving you in any right and just way that I 
can.” 

Another frightened glance into his face, that an- 
swered for itself. 

“I ought to tell you all now, but the trouble in- 
volves another — another who is dearer than life to 
me;” and the paleness of her face was overflowed 
now with deep blushes, as she buried it in her 
hands. 

Her words and pantomime startled her hearer 
with a new fear. Could it be that the desolate 
young creature, in the midst of all her splendor, 
had been lured- into temptation, and had bestowed 
on another the confidence and affection which she 
had no right to do; and had the evil led to the 
confusion and suffering which sooner or later it must 
inevitably do? The thoughts chased themselves 
rapidly through Cleveland King’s mind, and before 


300 one man’s work. 

lie was aware they had shaped themselves into this 
question — 

“I hope this friend is not one for whose sake 
another must be wronged?” 

She understood him; in an instant the bowed 
head was lifted quickly, and her face answered foi 
her before her voice with its calm scorn did — 

“I assure you, sir, that any love I may feel or 
express for my own brother is nothing for which I 
have reason to blush.” 

Her words lifted a sudden burden from his heart. 
It was his turn now to feel embarrassed. 

“ Forgive me, Mrs. Northam, if for a moment 
your words made me misapprehend you.” 

“Yes; it was perhaps natural they should; and 
now I have told you so much, it is necessary you 
should know the whole.” 

And so, little by little, Cleveland King learned 
the truth. We will not give it in Mrs. Hortham’s 
words; for it was pitiful to see the poor young 
wife’s distress, and how often she had to pause in 
the midst of her story and wring her hands, as 
dread, terror, shame by turns convulsed her. 

This was what Cleveland King learned. Her 
only brother, Calvin Humphrey, had been dis- 
charged from college for the remainder of the term, 
because of some foolish sophomore frolic in which 
he had been involved, with several other members 
of his class. He had left the city and gone to some 
watering-place, where he had fallen in among evil 


ONE MAN'S WORK. 


301 


3 men, and into evil ways. He had gambled — he 
had become very heavily involved in debt; his 
1 creditors had been inexorable, and one night, after 
drinking deeply, and stung to desperation by the 
thought of his debts, he had used the name of his 
brother-in-law to the amount of four thousand dol- 
lars, hoping to be able to redeem the note before it 
should be due. But he had lost the entire sum at 
the gaming-table. The note would be due in a few 
days, and so, driven to desperation, the young man 
had at last written to his sister, in a state border- 
ing on madness, and he had- solemnly declared his 
determination to end his own existence, rather than 
confront the disgrace which must follow the dis- 
covery of his crimes, and Mrs. Northam understood 
Calvin Humphrey too well to feel that this was on 
his part an idle threat. 

“ You will not utterly condemn Calvin because of 
I what I have said ?" besought the young wife, as she 
closed her painful story. He is so young — hardly 
twenty — so generous and warm-hearted, that all 
who know him best love him most; but he is im- 
pulsive and impressible, and this has led him into 
evil company, and, alas! into this terrible sin; and 
now I can not help him!" and the lady forgot her 
guest and wrung her hands again. 

He was certainly shocked at the story, but all 
other emotions were mastered by the young sister's 
distress. 

* l Mrs. Northam," he said, “ I am sorry for your 


302 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


brother from my heart. I shall not think now of 
the wrong he has done, only of how I can serve and 
save him.” She looked up with such a radiant 
glow of thanks that there was no need she should 
speak, although she tried to — tried and failed. 
“And in order to help him in the best way, I must 
make a few inquiries which under other circum- 
stances must seem intrusive.” 

“0, sir, you may ask me any thing!” 

** Your husband — does he know any thing of all 
this?” 

Mrs. Northam sat so near her interlocutor that he 
felt at this moment the shiver which went over her. 

“0 no!” she gasped with a look of terror. “The 
truth is, Mr. King, my husband is not kindly dis- 
posed toward Calvin; for my brother strenuously 
opposed our marriage, nearly three years ago, 
though he was but a boy at the time, and brought 
on himself the indignation of uncle Harry in conse- 
quence. I should not dare to tell Mr. Northam. I 
do not know that even for my sake he would save 
Calvin, and, at all events, he would drive him to 
desperation. Do not ask me any thing more,” and 
once more the lady turned away her white face, and 
buried it in her hands. 

Cleveland King sat silent, while a storm of indig- 
nation thundered over his soul. What a glimpse of 
that poor young creature’s married life had she just 
revealed to him! What a witness that she still 
held herself loyal to the innermost spirit of her 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


303 


marriage vows, to the name and the duty of wife, was 
in that appealing cry of hers — “Do not ask me fur- 
ther !” Even then she would not betray her hus- 
band by one word of reproach or blame — not even 
then, when he held the honor, the very life of her 
brother in his hands, and she, his wife, did not 
dare to throw herself at his feet, and beg the man 
for her sake to save him, though he would in nowise 
have missed the few thousands from his vaults, and 
could with them have saved from anguish, bitterer 
than death, the wife whom he had taken in her 
sweet and thoughtless girlhood to love, protect, and 
cherish. Not even then would she speak. Truly 
this woman was above other women! 

And Cleveland King’s heart ached as he looked 
on her and thought of her desolate grandeur, and 
thought, too, how she had been sacrificed to cu- 
pidity and pride, and his heart rose up almost as 
fiercely against her dead uncle as it did against her 
living husband. But in a little while he had con- 
trolled himself to consider what was to be done, and 
the best way of accomplishing it, and his voice had 
a kindly, tranquilizing tone as he said, 

“It will be best for me to see your brother, Mrs. 
Northam, in order to be of most service to him;” 
and his remark, going so wide of her last speech, 
showed how fully he understood and appreciated 
both it and her. 

“0, sir, if you only will see Calvin!” her smile, 
out of its tears, was radiant. 


304 


ONE MAN S WORK. 


“And you will give me a letter of introduction 
to him, stating that I am his friend and yours, and 
knowing all have come to serve him?” 

“Mr. King” — 

“There, I am not going to let you thank me at 
all, Mrs. Northam. Indeed, I shall be rude enougn 
to tell you that I haven’t time to hear you; but I 
shall send a porter for the letter and take the cars 
before six o’clock. I am a practical man, not much 
given to sentiment, you see;” and he rose up and 
had moved half way across the room, when Mrs. 
Hortham sprang to his side, and laid her hand on 
his arm. 

“I have fifteen hundred dollars — you must take 
that,” she stammered, her face stained with tears, 
burning with blushes, shame, gratitude, relief, all 
struggling in her face. “I have sold the diamonds 
uncle Harry gave me at my wedding, and I can 
raise the rest after a while. 0, sir, may God re- 
member you for this day’s work!” 

He lifted the little hand which lay light as a 
flake of snow on his arm, and kissed it gravely and 
reverently, as belonging to another, and without 
speaking a word went out. 

Late that afternoon Cleveland King received a 
note from Mrs. Hortham, inclosing a letter to her 
brother and the fifteen hundred dollars of which she 
had spoken. The next morning he was at the 
watering-place where the young student had gone 
to rusticate the weeks of his dismissal from college. 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


305 ' 


It was not difficult to find liis address, and Cleve- 
land King accordingly dispatched a brief note to 
him, designating the house where he could be found 
that morning, and referring to his sister’s letter, 
which he inclosed, for all further explanations. 

An hour later the brother of Mrs. Northam pre- 
sented himself before Mr. King. He was a slender, 
fine-looking young man, with a family resemblance 
to his sister, although the soft, delicate features of 
Mrs. Northam were cut in stronger, bolder lines. 
It was not a bad face, only the mouth lacked some- 
thing of character and decision, which years might 
give it, but which was the key to the weak side of 
Calvin Humphrey’s character; yet the mouth was 
not weak after all — only boyish. 

But what shocked Cleveland King was the hag- 
gard, pallid face of the young student. Truly, the 
ways of evil had not been to him smooth and pleas- 
ant ones. Shame, remorse, anxiety must have eaten 
deep into the life of Calvin Humphrey, to have 
wrought that anguish in his young face, to have 
filled those dark, hollow eyes with their look of de- 
spair. The two men grasped hands, and looked in 
each other’s faces. Cleveland King had one, as I 
said, that any man might trust. The younger spoke 
first. 

“ I have read Ellen’s letter,” he said. “She tells 
me that you know all, and that you have come here 
to help me.” 

It was a relief to Cleveland King to have the 
20 


306 


ONE MAN’S WOKK. 


subject opened in this plain, direct fashion. It 
saved all embarrassment on both sides, and the 
elder had fine intuition enough to perceive that now 
was not the time for counsel and advice. He 
wanted to gain a strong hold on the confidence and 
affection of the young man in whom he had felt so 
keen an interest— first for his sister’s, and now for 
his own sake. So he answered him — 

“I came, sir, for that especial object — to render 
you what service I could, and here is the proof of 
it.” He drew some papers from his pocket and 
slipped them into the young man’s hand. That 
contains my check,” he said, “for twenty-five hund- 
red dollars. You will also find bank-notes there 
to the amount of fifteen hundred, which your sister, 
having sold her diamonds, was enabled to send 
you.” 

Calvin Humphrey drew his hand across his fore- 
head. 

“I am a free man now,” he said; “I expected to 
be a dead one before night !” 

It was evident that he had been through a ter- 
rible experience — one which must haunt him more 
or less for a lifetime, and out of which he must 
come a better or a worse man. The terrible incu- 
bus was removed too suddenly for the young stu- 
dent to fully realize it. There were no transports of 
joy over his deliverance, as there would have been 
had the terror been slighter. 

“That was wrong, my young friend,” answered 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


307 


the calm, kindly voice of Cleveland King. “But 
the way you have taken always leads to that road. 
You should have trusted to God to deliver you.” 

“Has God done this for me?” asked the young 
man, and the hollow eyes suddenly grew damp with 
tears, and he reached out for the hand of Cleveland 
King. 

“God has done it, my friend,” he said, grasping 
the other. “ Carry this thought in your heart when 
you go out now to use this money — for the purpose 
for which you understand it is given you.” 

“ I will be back in an hour, and then I will say 
to you what I can not till the money is paid.” 

“Poor fellow — poor fatherless boy!” murmured 
to himself Cleveland King, *as he closed the door 
after the other, and resumed his walk up and down 
the room. “And yet, after all, this terrible lesson 
may prove, under God, his salvation. His whole 
nature will be tender and impressible now. I will 
; seize this golden moment for reaching and influ- 
encing him for good.” 

In less than an hour Calvin Humphrey returned. 
The haggard anguish was gone now — a new life 
and joy irradiated his face. He seized the hands of 
his new friend and wrung them. 

“ 0, sir,” he said, “ do you know you have saved 
me?” 

And even while he spoke a sudden pallor crept 
up and vanquished the life in the speaker’s face. 
He staggered and fell back, and if the strong arm 


308 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


of Cleveland King had not been there, he would 
have fallen senseless to the floor. When the young 
student opened his eyes he did not recognize the 
grave, kindly face which bent over him, nor the 
voice — soft as a father’s — which called to him. 
The reaction from that long anguish had been too 
much for the young man’s physical and mental 
powers, after the long strain upon them. 

For the next three days he was in a raging fever, 
which crept up to his brain, and during which he 
raved continually to Cleveland King, who watched 
by his bedside. The sick man disclosed much of 
his character and life during these ravings. His 
intense dislike of his brother-in-law, whose coarse, 
selfish nature his finer instincts penetrated ; his 
tender love for his only sister, whom he regarded 
as utterly sacrificed by her uncle to a man for 
whose character she could have little respect or af- 
fection — the fact that out of her own allowance she 
generously defrayed his expenses at college ; and all 
the peculiar temptations to which the young man 
had been subjected before his fall, were revealed to 
Cleveland King. 

They only served to increase his interest in his 
pity for the young life which lay so blighted and 
nearly broken before him. On the third day of his 
illness a long and refreshing slumber fell upon Cal- 
vin Humphrey; and when at last, toward the close 
of the sweet Autumn day, he opened his eyes and 
saw the kindly face which bent over him, a look of 


ONE MANS WORK. 


309 


perplexity and bewilderment filled them. In a 
little while, however, memory returned; he closed 
his eyes, and when he opened them again they were 
laden with touching gratitude for his benefactor. 

“ You know me ?” asked Cleveland King. 

“ Yes — and all. How long have I been sick?” 

“Three days; the danger is over now. Your 
physician says you ’ll come out a new man.” 

The pale lips of the invalid smiled sadly. Cleve- 
land understood him. 

“Yes, my friend, I trust and believe you will be 
that in a better, higher sense than your doctor 
means it.” 

“ If I do I shall owe it all to you,” answered the 
invalid. 

“Ho; give the glory where it only belongs — to 
God !” 

There was a little silence here. Calvin was the 
first to break it. 

“Have you been with me all this time?” 

“ Yes, my friend, I was bound to see this job 
through.” 

And after this the young men had a long talk — 
a talk which neither of them ever forgot; and Cal- 
vin Humphrey learned, then and there, all which 
had transpired betwixt his sister and his benefactor; 
and when he heard it he turned his head softly on 
the pillow, and tears rained down the pale cheeks ; 
and Cleveland King blessed God in his heart; for he 
knew they were tears of repentance and healing. 


310 


ONE MANS WORK. 


At last he said, turning his face suddenly toward 
Cleveland — 

“My precious sister — I wish I could see her!” 

“I will write her this very night, so that she 
may come up and take my place here. I did not 
mention your illness in the note I dispatched two 
days ago, to be delivered by my porter into her 
hands. I feared to add to her anxiety.” 

“Poor Ellen — she would come if she could ; but 
I am doubtful about her gaining her husband’s per- 
mission to do this. The man bears me a deep-seated 
grudge, and would be glad to annoy me in any way 
he could, at any cost of suffering on Ellen’s part. 
Still he might not dare to refuse, for the looks of 
the thing.” 

“Is the man a brute to your sister?” 

“Not exactly that, but he is of a coarse, hard, 
unsympathizing quality, pompous and self-conceited 
too, and when he is crossed, a tyrant.” 

“What a sacrifice!” said Cleveland King, with 
a shudder. 

“Yes; boy as I was, I opposed the marriage with 
all my might; and Ellen — poor child — wavered 
many times. But uncle Harry, as we afterward 
learned, had good and sufficient reasons for desiring 
the consummation of this marriage, and he argued 
and plead, and appealed to Ellen’s affection for him, 
and so at last it was done.” 

“I am afraid you are exhausting yourself, my 
young friend, by talking so much. You must not 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


oil 


talk any more now. I shall write to your sister 
to-night about you." 

% 

“Mr. Northam?” 

There was a little hesitancy — a little doubt, or 
reluctance which inhered in the lady’s articulation. 

“Well, what is it?’’ asked Mr. Benjamin Nor- 
tham, settling himself back in his easy chair, and 
opening his paper. He was in his after-dinner 
mood, which was always his most complacent one. 
He sat there, a heavy-framed, stolid, pompous man, 
with a rather hard-featured, yet on the whole, not 
uncomely face; a face which, however, the more you 
studied it, the less you found to like in it. 

A certain hardness and coarseness interpenetrated 
it. The gray eyes were keen and cold. You would 
not have liked to have been that man’s debtor, or 
to have solicited a favor of him. The tones with 
which he answered his wife were not inviting. 
There was something in them which, to very fine 
intuitions, implied that the man was conscious he 
was master of her and his house, and that in one 
way or another he would make others feel it also. 

There was a little pause before the words came. 
The lady sat opposite her husband, in the little 
graceful alcove which opened out of the parlors. 
Any one watching her narrowly might have per- 
ceived that she was agitated, and making a despe- 
rate effort to overcome the feeling. Her fingers 
played nervously with a paper-folder, which she 


312 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


had taken from the little table on her right. At 
last she looked up and said, “I have heard from 
Calvin to-day.” 

The words came out steady, but hurried, as 
though they cost her an effort; but her face, a 
little quieter and paler than usual, witnessed for 
her now, that having said the words, she would 
stand by them, and that she had, if necessary, some 
reserve courage to fall back upon. 

Mr. Kortham’s first look was one of astonish- 
ment; then his brow darkened angrily. 

“I thought, Mrs. Northam, that subject was 
never to be mentioned between us.” 

“And I have always complied with your wishes 
in the matter, as you know ; but the time for speak- 
ing has come now. The letter is not from my 
brother, but a friend of his, Mr. Cleveland King, 
who happens to be with him” — and here Mrs. Nor- 
tham paused a breath, to thank God that her 
brother was entirely and absolutely out of her hus- 
band’s power — “and with whose name you doubt- 
less are acquainted. The gentleman writes me that 
Calvin has been very ill.” 

“Your brother’s health is no concern of mine, 
and I had rather not have the subject intruded on 
me,” was the unfeeling rejoinder, and with a lower- 
ing face, and what he intended should be a majestic 
air of disapproval, settled himself to his paper. 

“But it is of mine — his own sister’s.” The 
lady’s courage was evidently rising — a small flame 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


313 


uurned steadily in her pale cheek. “He is absent 
from college at this time, at a hotel, and among 
entire strangers, saving for the presence of Mr. 
King, who is compelled to return to the city.” 

“ Mrs. Hortham, what is to be the end of all 
this?” asked her husband, putting down his paper, 
and confronting his wife’s face, and confronting, too, 
something there which he never had done before. 

“Simply that my brother is very ill, and needs 
my care, and I must go to him for a day or two, at 
least.” 

Mr. Northam was thoroughly astounded. His 
authority contemned, his will set at defiance in his 
own house, and by his wife, too; the gentle child- 
woman who had always stood in awe of his will 
and temper, and whom he had found so easy to 
bend to his authority. The worst side of the man 
was aroused — the hard, inflexible side; for gen- 
erally, Benjamin Northam, if he had his own way, 
and received a certain deference from those about 
him, which pleased his vanity, was in tolerably 
good humor. 

He brought down his hand on the table. 

“Mrs. Northam,” he thundered, “you shall not 
leave this house to go to your brother, be he dead 
or alive! I forbid that!” — all his temper roused 
now. 

She rose up quietly; the flame had quite died 
out of her face and left it white as ashes, still there 
was a look on it such as we fancy some kind of 


314 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


generals might wear at the head of an army, just 
before they gave the order to charge on the enemy — - 
she, the little, delicate, shrinking woman. 

“Do it if you dare, Benjamin Northam!” said, 
low and emphatic, the white lips of his wife. 

The man was taken aback. He had never con- 
fronted a spirit like that; for the moment blank 
amazement superseded the hot anger in his face; 
but it burned back in a moment, for Mr. Northam 
had too much aggressiveness and determination to 
have it easily overcome. 

“This is really very ridiculous of you, Mrs. Nor- 
tham. You’d better think twice before you take it 
on yourself to disobey my commands.” 

“I have, Benjamin Northam. I should be very 
likely to do that, when you know that from the 
•hour I became your wife, I have been obedient to 
every wish of yours, and have yielded my own 
rights, my own wishes, my own happiness, so many 
times to yours; and you know, too, whether you 
have dealt generously or justly by the woman you 
prevailed upon with promises you have not kept, to 
marry you in her early girlhood, before she was old 
enough to understand you, or comprehend her own 
rights, and brought her to the home where you 
have been more of a tyrant than a husband to 
her!” 

The words, or rather the truth in the words, 
stung the self-sufficient man — stung him into fiercer 
anger; and yet, he began to feel a kind of respect 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


315 


for his young wife which he had never felt before. 
He found there was some latent force and spirit in 
her, which he had never suspected till now. 

“ When you get through, I will answer, Mrs. 
Northam,” was the sneering retort, but in his secret 
soul he had a feeling that he was losing ground in 
this talk. 

“I want only a few moments, and I shall be 
done. I have made up my mind to take the even- 
ing train to my sick, it may be dying brother. If 
you turn me out of your house now and forever, I 
shall go. If by violence you compel me to remain 
away from him, I shall tell this whole story on the 
very first opportunity which I have, and you can 
best tell whose side public opinion will take in this 
matter, and whether there is one man or woman for 
whose respect you will care, who will not absolutely 
despise and condemn you for your cruelty, for I 
shall hold nothing back; the world shall know the 
whole, and that your only reason for persecuting 
my only brother, for forbidding him your house, 
and commanding me never to utter his name in 
your presence, was simply and entirely because he 
feared to give his only sister, when she was little 
more than a child, into your power, lest you should 
not make her, what I solemnly declare before God 
you have not, a kind and tender husband! And 
I shall tell, also, that when my fatherless, mother- 
less brother lay sick, and it may be dying, in a 
strange place, among strangers, you refused to let 


316 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


me go to his side, you even compelled me to re- 
main away from him, when I besought you to let 
me, the only sister he had on earth, go to him, to 
do for him what I could with my presence and care ; 
and you know, too, that when this story is circu- 
lated of you, throughout this city, as, if you drive 
me to desperation, it surely shall be, there is not 
a decent man or woman in it who will not call you 
a brute.” 

It was strong language, and put in a way that 
would tell best with a man like Benjamin Hortham; 
for, like most pompous, conceited people, who have 
made for themselves a position, and pride them- 
selves on it, he was sensitive respecting the opin- 
ions of others, and the fear of social ridicule or 
contempt was one of his weak points. He had 
sense enough to perceive that his wife was in the 
right, and if she disclosed the simple facts concern- 
ing this treatment of her and her brother, all his 
wealth would not procure him indemnity from the 
indignation and contempt of the community. 

He looked in her face once more. There it 
stood — pale, resolute, defiant to the death. She 
would do all she said; he felt it. He, Benjamin 
Northam, was in this one little, fragile woman’s 
power. He must yield. The knowledge galled and 
infuriated him; he would do it in the way to pre- 
serve his insulted dignity, and wound her as much 
as possible. So he cleared his throat, and rose up — 

“Mrs. Hortliam,” attempting by a new accession 


ONE MAN’S WORN. 


31 / 


of dignity to atone for his waning authority, “I 
have no time to waste with you to-day in such mat- 
| ters. If you desire to go into tragedies, I wish you 
i to understand, once for all, that it is quite out of 
ray line. You know already my wishes in the mat- 
| ter; but as I never have used violence, as you term 
it, to compel you into obedience, so neither shall 
I do it now, and you will take your own course;” 
and he walked out of the room, and slammed the 
door. 

Mrs. Northam had triumphed. For a moment 
her face showed it, kindling into a kind of fierce 
exultation. Then she sank down into her chair — 
the spirit which had sustained her broke down. 

“ I ’ve conquered this time,” murmured the poor 
young wife. “I shall go to Calvin — but 0, what a 
price I ’ve paid for it !” and a look of mingled 
agony and disgust tortured the fair face of Ellen 
Northam. “To frighten my husband into justice, 
to be compelled to threaten the man whom I ought 
to honor and love into an act of simple humanity 
toward his wife — 0, it’s terrible, it’s terrible!” and 
sobs shook her to and fro as the branches of pines 
are shaken by storms on the sea-shore, and she 
clasped the palms of her small hands together in 
her anguish and desolation, as she thought how she 
must carry this great sorrow and shame through all 
her life, and Ellen Northam needed to pray as she 
did, “God be pitiful to me!” 

But she had gained a greater victory than she 


318 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


suspected, for from that hour Ellen Hortham was 
mistress of her own house. Her husband did not 
forget the desperate spirit that he had once roused 
in his young wife, and he did not care to encounter 
it again. Of course he was pompous and self-con- 
ceited, and liked to make as great a display of his 
authority as ever, but the essence of domestic abso- 
lutism had disappeared. His wife had met him 
once on his own ground, and vanquished him. Then 
the way in which she had put his tyranny to him- 
self had a profound effect; for he saw how it must 
appear to others, and the esteem of his fellow-men 
was something Benjamin Northam could not afford 
to lose. 

Had his wife been in his power, as, but for 
Cleveland King she surely must, the matter would 
have been entirely changed; and it is, to say the 
least, extremely doubtful whether the man would 
have been reached sufficiently by his wife’s suppli- 
cations and anguish, to save her brother from the 
exposure of his crime and the disgrace which must 
inevitably have followed it. 

But when his own conduct was placed before him 
in a light which he saw very plainly would outrage 
public sentiment and result in his own disgrace, 
then Benjamin Northam felt as nearly guilty, and 
experienced something as closely resembling com- 
punctions of conscience as it was possible for a 
nature so pompous and self-inflated to do. He saw 
through the world’s eyes, and his wife had actually 


ONE MAN’S WOKK. 


319 


made him for once stand in fear of her, and the. 
lesson was one he would not be likely to forget. It 
was of course very contemptible, but there are a 
great many contemptible men in the world, and 
probably will be — till the millennium. 

“Come in,” said the voice of Calvin Humphrey 
to the soft knock which came at his door with the 
early day. Cleveland King had been obliged to 
leave him late the night before, and the young 
I convalescent had been watching the morning sun- 
shine as it spattered the walls and lay bright on 
the floor of his chamber; and while he watched, 
Calvin Humphrey held solemn communion with 
himself. 

The door opened softly — the sweet, tremulous 
face of a woman put itself inside the room — 

“0, Ellen!” Calvin Humphrey lifted his head 
from his pillow, and his heart was in his cry. 

She sprang forward, and the next moment the 
brother and sister were in each other’s arms. There 
were no words for the next half hour. They wept 
out together, as children d®, some of the pain and 
sorrow that was in both their hearts. 

“0, Ellen, it was good — it was like you to come 
to me now!” and the young student caressed the 
pale, wistful face with his hand. “I began to fear 
that he would prevent your coming.” 

Something of the dauntless, defiant look of the 
day before returned to Mrs. Hortham’s face. 


$20 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


“He tried to,” she said; “but I stood up and 
dared him to do it to his face; and for the first 
time in his life Beniamin Northam was afraid of 
me.” 

“And you have traveled all night to get to my 
bedside, poor little sister !” 

She smiled out of her face, that looked pale and 
weary i\ow for want of sleep. 

“0, Calvin, the night didn’t seem long, because 
I was coming to you!” 

And then the magnitude of his sin — the shame 
and anguish it must have wrought for the sister, 
who, for his sake, would have sacrificed her life, 
came over the young student as they never had 
done before. He clasped his hands over his pale 
face, burning up suddenly into shame and anguish, 
and his voice choked through the words — 

“0, Ellen, can you forgive me?” 

Her answer came in a whisper, soft as an angel’s 
might — 

“ I did that, Calvin, before I came here.” 

He looked up now, with eyes full of tender rev- 
erence — 

“0, Ellen, if you knew it all you would think 
my suffering had atoned for my sin!” 

She clung to him now — the emotion and her face 
telling what she would not allow her lips to — all 
that she had suffered. 

“0, Calvin, for the sake, and in the name of our 
dead father and mother; for the sake of your own 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


321 


soul here and hereafter, and for the sake of my 
heart, that will break for grief if you do, promise 
me that you will never yield to this temptation 
again !” 

He held her hands and looked up in her face — 

“Ellen, can you trust me?” he asked. 

Calvin Humphrey’s face was at that moment for 
a sign and a witness for him. His sister looked at 
him, and answered fervently, 

“Yes, Calvin, from my soul I do trust you.” 

Afterward there was silence betwixt them. Mrs. 
Northam remained three days with her brother; 
and during that time the invalid recuperated rap- 
idly, and was able to ride out with his sister the 
morning before she left. 

Those three days were, on the whole, the happiest 
which the two had passed since the careless, happy 
boy and girlhood which grew up under their uncle’s 
roof — their good-natured, improvident uncle, whose 
last days had been his worst; for he had not the 
moral courage to meet the consequences of his own 
mistakes and betrayal of his trusts, and conse- 
quently sacrificed his niece to save himself. 

But Mrs. Hortham and her brother, in so far as 
it was possible, during this time, put the inevitably- 
dark side of their lives out of sight. They were 
both young and of bright and hopeful natures, and 
the recuperative forces of youth were yet strong 
in both. They talked of the old, happy days; 

they laid plans for the future, they comforted $n4 
21 


322 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


strengthened each other; and when the last hour of 
Mrs. Northam’s visit drew near, they both looked 
wonderfully better and happier. 

“I shall get down to college by next week, and, 
Ellen, I mean to make up for lost time,” said Cal- 
vin Humphrey, gravely, as his sister sat by his 
side, her hand clasped in his; for the inexorable 
hour was nigh. 

“You must not work too hard, dear,” with a kind 
of mother-fondness in eyes that looked on the face 
she was so soon to leave. 

“I shall go through New York. You will come 
to see me at the depot ?” 

“No; you must come to see me next time!” she 
said, with a -significant look. 

The student started in amazement. 

“No, Ellen, I shall not subject myself to insult 
from your husband,” he answered, after a little 
pause; and the look Mr. Northam had seen in his . 
wife’s face was in her brother’s now. “You know 
he would only turn me out of the house.” 

“If I believed that, Calvin, I should not ask you 
to come; but I have not lived for the last four 
years in vain with Benjamin Northam. I have found 
there is one thing which he does stand in awe and 
fear of, and that is public opinion. Rather than 
brave this, I believe he will allow you to visit me, 
or, at least, withdraw his overt opposition to it. 
Yes, Calvin, you must stop at our house on your 
way to college;” and Mrs. Northam rose up lightly 


one man’s work:. 323 

and went to her own room; for her watch-hands 
were creeping toward the last moment. 

“ What a sister she is !” murmured Calvin Hum- 
phrey; and he shut his eyes — shutting down the 
tears in them, too. 

But she had caught the words, and came back 
a moment after with her bonnet on. 

“Say rather, Calvin,” she said, with her sweet 
smile a little tremulous, “ what a friend we had!” 

“ I do say that many times every day.” 

“ The event proved that Mrs. Northam had 
judged her husband rightly. She found him, on 
her return, sullen and reticent, and he maintained 
a somewhat morose demeanor for several days; but 
he did not once make the most distant allusion to 
her visit, neither did she. 

It happened that the day on which Calvin Hum- 
phrey wrote his sister she might expect him in 
New York, her husband was quite unusually sum- 
moned out of town on business. His complaisance, 
such as it was, had returned to him by this time; 
indeed, in several instances he had avoided annoy- 
ing his wife after his old fashion. 

“1 shall be gone three days, Ellen,” he said to 
her; “and if you feel timid about sleeping alone in 
your part of the house, I ’ll send our head book- 
keeper up each night during my absence.” „ 

The young wife was always touched at any little 
courtesy or thoughtfulness on her husband’s part, 
which proved that he cared any thing for her be- 


324 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


yond the mere pride which he took in her as a 
graceful and crowning adornment to his home — the 
same sort of pride which he had for his horses, and 
which, after all, was nothing but self-worship ; and 
there was a timid entreaty in Mrs. Northam’s eyes 
as she looked up — 

“ Thank you ; my brother has written me that he 
shall be in New York for a day or two on his re- 
turn to college. I hope you will not object to his 
stopping here?” 

The heavy brow lowered — there was a murky 
gleam of anger in the gray eyes. 

“I have told you, once for all, Mrs. Northam, 
that your brother shall never cross my threshold, 
and he never shall.” 

That was not the way to deal with this man. 
Gentleness, timidity, entreaty roused the aggress- 
iveness and the tyrant within him. The latent, 
spirit that Benjamin Northam had once seen in his 
wife was awake again. She was out of her chair in 
a moment — her face steadfast, her lips resolute, her 
eyes blazing — 

“Very well, Mr. Northam. If my brother can 
not cross my threshold, I shall simply accompany 
him to your partner’s, explain how he has been, 
and is, and from what cause, debarred from your 
threshold, and ask permission to have him remain 
there, where I can daily see him during his brief 
visit. I am certain they will not refuse so just a 
request; and you can make your choice betwixt 


ONE man’s work. 325 

your own house and your partner’s, for I shall 
surely do as I have said." 

“The d — 1 you will, ma’am," said Benjamin 
Northam, looking at his wife in a kind of blank 
amazement — in a kind of new respect, too, which, 
for the moment, superseded his anger. 

“Yes, I shall," she said, seating herself once 
more, quietly, and when he looked at her face, he 
knew she would, too. 

He brought down his hand heavily on the table; 
he swore a fierce oath at her; then Benjamin Nor- 
itham rose up and went out of the room, slamming 
the door after him. 

Mrs. Northam had triumphed the second time, 
but each one cost her, as it must any refined, right- 
minded woman, a terrible wear and tear of soul and 
body. 

Four years had passed away. Most of this time 
Cleveland King had passed abroad, it having become 
necessary for one of the partners of his house to 
give personal supervision to its financial relations in 
Europe; and the youngest one’s tastes and charac- 
ter was peculiarly fitted for this department. 

Cleveland King had, after three years, returned 
to his native land. He had traveled a great part 
of this time, and, as all true travelers should, he 
had lived as far as was possible the life of the 
people amidst whom he sojourned. New aspects of 
life, social, civil, political and religious, had pre- 


326 


ONE MAN’S WORE. 


sented themselves to his observation and study. 
He had learned much; he had interested himself 
in the forms of government, the national develop- 
ment, in all its varied phases, of the people among 
whom he dwelt; and he was a man to go right 
down into the quick and essence of things, not to 
be satisfied with any mere artistic and surface 
views. 

Of course these four years had wrought many 
changes in the man — had made him larger, more 
liberal in thought and feeling; but the tender heart, 
the warm, generous instincts, the childlike faith, 
combined with that sterling principle and integrity 
which nothing could shake or corrupt — these were 
still a part of Cleveland King. 

Of Mrs. Northam he had heard but once, and 
that was about a year after he had left America. 
He happened to be in Brussels at the time, and 
there received a letter from her, inclosing the 
twenty-five hundred dollars for which she was his 
debtor. It was a brief letter — one that touched 
Cleveland King; for the emotions which inspired it 
had overswayed the writer’s heart and broke into 
her words. 

Of course he acknowledged her letter, and there 
was an end of the correspondence; but often amid 
his wanderings the pale, sweet face of the fair 
young wife rose up before Cleveland King, as he 
had seen it in the midst of her home of desolate 
grandeur, and his heart ached for her. 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


327 


One day not long after his return, he ventured 
to mention Mrs. Hortham’s name to his sister in a 
tone of studied indifference. 

“Dear me! her marrying a rich old man didn’t 
pay well in the end,” was Mrs. Gresham’s answer, 
with a little indifferent pity in her voice. 

“What do you mean, Julia?” 

“Why, Mr. Northam failed more than two years 
ago. The thing took every body by surprise, and 
proved to be one of those utter, absolute failures 
which there is no retrieving; for the man had gone 
into speculations, in such a rash, headlong manner, 
that he could not have possessed his senses. Anx- 
iety and agitation brought a fit of apoplexy, and a 
month after he was a ruined man Benjamin Hor- 
tham was a dead one! He left his wife, and his 
son of a year old, without a dollar; so those who 
knew affirmed. The house and furniture were sold; 
Mrs. Northam went into the country; and her 
brother, who had just left college, accompanied 
them. I presume she ’s living in obscurity some- 
where.” 

Cleveland King mentally resolved that he would 
know where, some day. He doubted whether Mrs. 
Northam needed any pity, and whether she had not 
been relieved to step from her lonely splendor into 
“obscurity.” 

“My little boy, you must wait for the currants 
to get ripe.” 


328 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


“Will that be to-morrow?” asked the child, look- 
ing up wistfully in his mother’s face, and withdraw- 
ing his small hand that was like a white, full-blos- 
somed lily, from betwixt the pickets, inside of which 
the currant bushes stood in a dark-green row. 

“Not to-morrow, nor next day, my boy, but in a 
couple of weeks, perhaps, the currants will begin to 
turn red, and look like the small rubies in mamma’s 
brooch.” 

It was a clear, sweet voice that spoke these 
words, and a caress interpenetrated them all. The 
lady who spoke them had a small, graceful figure, 
in a simple white dress, and her straw hat was 
trimmed with black bands of velvet. The child by 
her side was a dimpled, bright, restless, rosy little 
creature, with curls of deep yellow gold, and eyes 
of a kind of mellow brown, full of the sweetness 
and joy of childhood — just one of those children 
which you feel an irresistible impulse to take up in 
your arms and deluge with caresses. 

It happened that a gentleman who was stopping 
for a few days at the single hotel in the little coun- 
try town of Woodside, for quiet and mountain air, 
was on horseback that June morning, and the sight 
of the young mother and her child attracted him, 
for he had a singularly-fine perception of all beauti- 
ful things. The feet of his horse made no sound in 
the soft, sandy road; and when the gentleman had 
heard the lady’s sweet, vibrant voice, his curiosity 
to get a glimpse of her face was strengthened; he 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


329 


wondered within himself whether it completed the 
harmony of the figure and voice. The lady stopped 
before the gate of the small, pleasant little cottage, 
with some graceful larches drooping in front. 

“ There, my boy, we ’ve got home once more !” 

The gentleman spurred his horse, for the moment 
when she should turn to close the gate would be 
his chance; she dropped her child’s hand, and the 
little fellow taking advantage of his brief liberty 
darted out into the road, and was the next moment 
close to the hoofs of the gentleman’s horse. He 
gave a little shriek of affright, the mother turned 
sharply, the next moment a cry broke from her lips 
full of fright and agony. 

“0, my child!” and she darted forward. 

But the rider was off his horse in a breath. He 
had lifted the little fellow almost from under the 
feet of his horse, and he placed him in his mother’s 
arms, 3aying: 

“ I assure you, he is not in the least hurt, ma’am.” 

“ Thank you, sir; but 0, what a narrow escape, 
my precious baby!” and for a moment the mother 
had no eyes, no thought, except for her child. 

Then she looked up. The stranger was searching 
her face with startled, intent gaze; a quick surprise 
and uncertainty startled the blood back into her 
cheeks, and they both spoke together — 

“Mrs. Northam!” 

“Mr. King!” 

Then she put out her hand with the simple, earn- 


330 ONE man’s work. 

est grace that she had not lost with her child- 
hood — 

“0, I am glad to see you once more, Mr. King!” 
and the tears filmed the lady’s eyes as she spoke. 

“I expected to find you some time, but not here 
and now,” said the gentleman, Cleveland King, with 
a smile that was not on his lips alone. 

“You will surely come in? — this is our home;” 
and she glanced at the little cottage, like a white 
cup rimmed with vines. 

And as he followed the lady Cleveland King 
thought of that other stately home where last he 
had been her guest. The same thought and con- 
trast must have struck Mrs. Northam too; for she 
turned toward her guest as they crossed the thresh- 
old, and with a bright, tremulous smile, that yet 
had a certain pathos in it, said to him, 

“ It ’s a very humble home to which I must wel- 
come you; but 0, it’s such a happy one, Mr. 
King !” 

These four years had gone over her without mark 
or witness. The girlish, half-wistful look was in 
her face still, and some new life and hope was there 
now, too — something which he had missed before. 
So they went in together and sat down in the little 
vine-shaded parlor of the cottage; and the sweet 
child, tired with his walk and the growing heats of 
the Summer day, stared at the stranger awhile, then 
the golden head drooped and finally fell heavy with 
slumber into his mother’s lap. 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


331 


“Do you know any thing of all which has hap- 
pened to me?” asked Mrs. Northam; and her face 
was solemn, but there was no keen regret in it — 
how could there be? 

“Some of all. I heard of your husband’s failure 
and death from my sister, and of your removal into 
tie country.” 

“Yes; there were several motives which induced 
us to come here. We wanted the purer country 
air for my baby; and then it is very cheap living 
at Woodside, and we manage to get along nicely on 
Calvin’s salary, although it is only eight hundred 
a year.” 

Her face, in its bright quiet and content, spoke 
for her — said all that her lips did not — then and 
there. They had each a good deal to talk over, 
and Mrs. Hortham treated her guest as though he 
was just what he was — a very dear friend, who 
would be interested to learn any thing of all which 
had transpired to her since their last meeting. She 
told him briefly the particulars of her husband’s 
last illness; and how he had seemed altered, soft- 
ened, and humbled when his great fortune, whose 
foundations he thought that he laid so broad and 
deep suddenly broke from under him; and how 
kind some of his creditors had proved; and that 
when the costly furniture of her city home fell 
under the hammer of the auctioneer, she had saved 
enough to furnish the pretty little cottage, where, 
Mrs. Northam said, the radiance of cheerfulness 


332 


ONE MAN’S WOKE. 


lighting up all her features, “she should be happy 
to live and die.” 

There was one woman who had had enough of 
wealth, fashion, splendor, and all these had in no 
wise harmed her. And Cleveland King glanced 
around the small, tasteful parlor, with its relics of 
other times, and it looked pleasanter to him than 
all the old splendor of the home where Mrs. Hor- 
tham had once been his hostess. 

And he had much to tell; and the lady sat still 
and listened eagerly to his bright, animated pic* 
tures of foreign life and travel; and the June morn- 
ing slipped through its golden hours into noon, and 
then Calvin Humphrey came home. 

Great was the young man’s astonishment, varied 
and deep his emotions on seeing his sister’s guest. 
He grasped Cleveland’s hand and wrung it without 
any words for a while; at last he spoke — 

“Our best friend at last! We always think of — 
we always speak of you as this !” 

“And now, gentlemen,” said Mrs. Hortham, get- 
ting up with a little gayety of manner, which sat 
well on her girlish face and figure, “you must en- 
tertain yourselves for a little while, as I have but 
one domestic, and my dinner requires some last su- 
pervision which she can not bestow on it. Edward, 
my boy, go to your uncle;” for the child was awake 
at last, and rubbing his sleepy, brown eyes with his 
small fists. 

These four years had wrought a great change in 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


333 


Calvin Humphrey. As Cleveland King looked on 
him, he thought that he was truly a brother that 
any sister would be proud of. 

The slender, student-figure had expanded into 
manhood; the -face had lost its boyish beauty, but 
it had gained in force, concentration, fixed purpose. 
Calvin Humphrey had the face of a man who could 
trust himself, and whom others could trust. When 
the two gentlemen were alone, the younger said to 
the elder, 

“Do you know, sir, that all I am now — all I 
ever expect to be, I owe to you — to your kindness, 
which rescued me from the gulf into which I had 
plunged myself?” 

“We must agree never to speak of that,” an- 
swered the elder. “Your sister’s gratitude repaid 
me a thousand times for the service I was enabled 
to render you both.” 

At this moment the child, who had been cu- 
riously investigating the strange gentleman with 
his eyes wide for wonder, slipped off from his uncle’s 
knee and drew up to Cleveland with a pretty ap- 
peal in his face. And the gentleman lifted the boy 
in his arms and kissed him. And during this inter- 
view Cleveland King learned that Calvin had, 
through a friend of his uncle, obtained the situa- 
tion of tutor in a commercial college a few miles 
from Woodside, with an annual salary of eight hund- 
red dollars. 

“ We manage to live very nicely on it,” said the 


334 


ONE MAN’S WORK. 


young tutor, with a smile. “You can’t imagine 
what a wonderful and economical housekeeper Ellen 
has developed !” 

At that moment she put her face, touched with 
a smile, inside the parlor, and announced dinner. 
A sweet and wonderful hostess she was at her own 
table, Cleveland King thought; and her fair, young 
face had never beamed with such happiness and 
content, behind the massive silver in her splendid 
dining-room, as it did here, seated at her table, 
under the little cottage roof. 

Beautiful to the watchful eyes of Cleveland King 
seemed, too, the love which existed between Mrs. 
Northam and her brother, so singularly separated 
from the world, and closely united together. 
It was a love which, before him, at least, demon- 
strated itself in no words; but eyes and voices bore 
to it constant and faithful witness. After the pleas- 
ant dinner was over the three came back to the 
cool, vine-shaded parlor; and there, with a little 
laugh, Mrs. Northam slipped a skein of embroidery 
silk over her brother’s fingers. 

“You see, Mr. King, I try to make Calvin use- 
ful in all small household services, and hope to turn 
him out a model old-bachelor uncle one of these 
days,” she said. 

“I find it impossible to tell which looks as if the 
work was pleasanter — the teacher or the scholar,” 
smiled the guest, looking from the young man to 
his sister. 


ONE MANS WOKK. 


335 


“ 0, Calvin is the best scholar in the world,” said 
she. Somewhat more added the lady's eyes, looking 
in her brother’s face. 

“ That is because Ellen is the best teacher in the 
world,” answered the brother. 

“How happy you two must be here alone to- 
gether!” said Cleveland King, half to himself; and 
he thought of his own sister, and sighed to himself, 
but so low that neither his host or hostess caught it. 

“So happy that the world seems too far off to 
harm us. We are blessed in our humility — are we 
not, Calvin?” and the thought shook the tears into 
Mrs. Hortham’s eyes. 

“Yes, Ellen;” and there was more than tender- 
ness — something of reverence — in the gaze with 
which Calvin Humphrey answered his sister. And 
when the silk had flowed in a white rill away from 
the young tutor’s fingers to his sister's spool, he 
looked at his watch, and said, 

“There are two hours, now, of work for me to- 
day; I should be glad to remain.” And he went 
away. They watched him from the window till he 
was out of sight. 

“He is the best brother in the world,” said Mrs. 
Northam, turning to her guest. 

And Cleveland King thought what he did not 
say — “Happy is the brother who has such a sister!” 

He remained at the cottage during most of that 
day. They had much to talk over — so much that 
it was not finished that day, nor any other of the 


336 


ONE MAN'S WORK. 


days which Cleveland King passed at Woodside, foi 
he did not return to New York till a week after 
his meeting with Mrs. Northam,. and when he did, 
he felt some new want and restlessness, and his 
thoughts wandered often to the little cottage that 
sat like a white basin cosily nestling among the 
hills at Woodside. 

So he came back again. He was a sincere, 
straightforward man, as you know. The second 
day after his arrival, he invited Mrs. Northam to 
ride out with him. Among the deep pine woods, 
filled with a solemn chant, on their way to the sea, 
Cleveland King told his companion why he had 
never married : because his heart and soul had never 
yet found a woman to whom they could say, “We 
will walk together the time of God’s appointment, 
looking with faith and hope to the end, believing 
that though it may be well with us here, it shall be 
better beyond — a true woman — a loving woman — 
a Christian woman. Never, did I say? I have 
found her now. Ellen, you understand me?” 

She looked up. Many things struggled in her 
face for mastery; they all broke down into a sob. 

“Ellen, I know how shamefully you were de- 
ceived and wronged by one husband; is it because 
of his memory that you can not trust me?” 

“0, no, no! hut when I remember the wrong he 
did me, I remember, too, that he was the father of 
my child.” 

“And as such we will always speak of him. 


ONE man’s woek. 337 

Ellen, may I not be now the father of your child — 
I pray God a better one than he was?” 

She nestled up to him; she laid her soft, flutter- 
ing fingers on his arm; her sweet eyes smiled up 
into his face full of love — 

“ I will try to be that woman your heart has long 
sought for, Cleveland,” she answered. 

22 






































































































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THE STORY OF EDM RANDOLPH. 


She, Edna Randolph, opened the door and looked 
out. It was a cold, chill, bloodless, ashy-faced day. 
Clouds of a pallid, white gray were drawn thick and 
tight over the sky. Patches of snow lay in the 
hollows by the road-side, and on the hills, like 
breadths of soiled flannel which the winds had torn 
and the rains had rotted. Certainly there was not 
much in this day — drooping, baffled, haggard — to 
give to any soul who went to it for strength, heal- 
ing, sympathy; and this girl had come to it for 
help; and her soul, out of some dumb want, yearn- 
ing, hunger, made its appeal, and there was no an- 
swer. She was naturally of a restless, nervous 
habit, never sitting long at one sort of work, or in 
one position; of sudden, rapid movements, liking 
change of physiognomy in her surroundings, and 
fond of walking in different rooms during the day, 
and among the long halls where you would be cer- 
tain to find her, generally with a sweet, bright con- 
tentment in her face, like one who communed with 
pleasant thoughts. And a pleasant soul had this 
girl or woman, just on the borders of her twenty- 


340 THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 

fourth Winter, of whom I am now to tell you; a 
soul gracious, tender, womanly; with a fineness of 
quality, and a depth of nature, which are bestowed 
on few, either of men or women. 

But now, looking on the day, this face of Edna 
Randolph was not bright. The vague sadness at 
the core of her life, that morning, which had start- 
led her so suddenly from her embroidery, grew 
deeper and wider, as the increasing mist settled 
down upon the distant hills. She shivered, looking 
off to these, and the tears came large and slow into 
her eyes. 

If you had asked her what caused them, she could 
not have told you, and would probably have fancied 
it was out of some sympathy with the day, which 
seemed to her clothed in its sackcloth of clouds, and 
grieving for its lost sunshine. But Edna Randolph 
was mistaken here; her tears had some deeper foun- 
dation than the day. There she stood in the wide, 
old-fashioned front door, a woman hardly of middle 
size, somewhat too slender, with a fair, oval face, 
all the features finely cut; yet so pale as to give 
one an impression of delicacy. She was not hand- 
some; there was not bloom nor warmth enough 
about her for that. She had eyes of a deep ame- 
thyst, and a mouth tender, sweet, and which, though 
closed now, in that sort of grieved way which re- 
minded you of a little child’s, had in it all possibili- 
ties of smiles. 

Looking at her in some hours of her life, people 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 34 1 

had called Edna Randolph beautiful, but they were 
not hours like this. 

She was an only daughter, and her father was a 
farmer in the old town of Woodleaf; a man of the 
sturdy, old-fashioned New England type; shrewd, in- 
dustrious, intelligent; a kindly, hospitable, strongly- 
opinionated old man, who had made his own money, 
and prided himself on it, and who had settled him- 
self in the midst of his broad wheat-fields and 
goodly orchards, to enjoy a ripe, hearty, cheerful 
old age. 

Edna’s mother had died .three years before, and 
the girl had had that inestimable blessing, the coun- 
sel and example of a true, noble, Christian mother. 
Her fine qualities came to her from this side; 
but there was added to these somewhat of her 
father’s shrewd, sterling sense, and his strong, 
sound, practical way of judging men and things. 
Edna had one brother, two years her senior; a 
brave, tender, manly nature as hers was womanly. 
He had just finished his professional studies, for the 
farmer was a broad-minded, liberal-souled man, and 
had spared no expense in the education of his chil- 
dren. His son had gone to Yale; his daughter had 
had the finest advantages which a thorough board- 
ing-school course could afford. 

Edna was not an ornamental scholar. She could 
appreciate fine music, but she would never have ex- 
celled in its execution. She did not waste her time 
in pretty paintings, in a taste of German, and 


342 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 


Italian, and French ; but whatever she studied, that 
she studied not for the show, but for the love of it. 
So at the end of the course she was what so few of 
her sex are, a fine, well-disciplined scholar, a sincere 
lover of good books; her heart had kept pace with 
her intellect; the sweet, tender, womanly sympa- 
thies, the quick enthusiasm had been strengthened 
instead of chilled by these years of study. So, on 
this morning in January, this girl, whose spiritual 
lineaments I have tried feebly to paint for you, came 
out on the deep veranda which crossed the whole 
front of the wide, ample homestead of farmer Ran- 
dolph — a broad, pleasant veranda, sheltering one 
from sun and rain, and Edna’s favorite prome- 
nade. 

Edna’s life was, on the whole, a very happy one 
in the old farm homestead. She was her father’s 
pet and idol; spent her time between her books, 
and care for his comfort — for she devoted several 
hours of each day to reading and chatting with 
him; and a niece of his, a childless widow much 
Edna’s senior, had taken Mrs. Randolph’s position 
in the household, thus relieving the girl from all 
domestic cares. 

But there were times when the soul of Edna 
Randolph rose up and protested against this slug- 
gish life — this life which sometimes seemed to her 
of one dead tone, wanting in warmth and color, in 
purpose, activity, in something to enrich and exalt 
it. It was not singular. Edna Randolph had a 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 343 

bright, strong, active spirit, which needed some 
object, idea, purpose, to concentrate and absorb it. 

Woodleaf was an old town in the western part of 
the State, half a dozen miles from any depot; and 
its two centuries gave it a venerable and pictur- 
esque air, as iir sat in the midst of its charming 
scenery, reminding one of some old English village, 
wanting only the hawthorn hedges and ivy. And 
the old town slept quiet and stately amid all the 
rush and progress of the age, keeping the stately, 
social forms of a by-gone period, and retaining the 
old habits of thinking and doing. 

Edna ^Randolph was not of the material of which 
fashionable ladies are made. She did not crave the 
gayety and excitement of the city, and she loved 
that quiet old home among the hills better than 
any place on earth; and yet it was a necessity of 
this bright, strong, womanly nature, that it should 
sometimes repine at its monotonous life; that books 
should sometimes weary it; and that all the possi- 
bilities of tenderness, sacrifice, achievement, which 
slept unfolded within it, should have stirred them- 
selves into a vague hunger, and yearning, and im- 
patience. And just now these feelings had made 
their voice heard with an unusual imperiousness. 
Edna was exceedingly susceptible to elemental in- 
fluences, and now the sense of gloom and loss in her 
soul seemed to respond to the gloom and loss of the 
day. These seasons were very unusual with Edna 
Eandolph. She was of too healthful a nature, too 


344 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 


well poised, and too much, inclined to look at the 
bright side of things, often to yield to feelings 
like those which at present possessed her. 

She walked up and down the veranda, regardless 
of the cold chill in the atmosphere, and finding 
some relief in the mere physical movement. And 
suddenly a couple of young men on horseback spur- 
red around the sharp curve of the road, and rode 
directly in front of the house. They both looked 
up with curiosity at the rapid, graceful figure on 
the veranda. 

The exercise had kindled a glow in Edna’s cheeks. 
She wore a morning-dress of some dark, bright 
woolen, while a frill of lace made a small white surf 
about her neck — a delicate, picturesque, graceful 
figure, cut against the gloomy sky. 

The young men turned and smiled in each other’s 
faces. 

“I know who that lady is!” said one of them. 

“Let's see whether you do, old fellow?” 

“The lady is your sister, Miss Edna Randolph.” 

“Yes, that is Edna,” replied the other, glancing 
up again with eyes full of fondness and pride at the 
swift figure. 

Then the two gentlemen spurred their horses. 
“Edna!” called one of these. The girl started, 
turned about with a face full of sudden bewilder- 
ment, then the roses blossomed out wide and bright 
in it, the eyes leaped into gladness and tenderness, 
and to all who might then and there behold, the 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 345 

latent beauty of the face of Edna Randolph was 
disclosed. 

“ 0 , Paul, Paul!” and she put out her arms. 

The young ‘man was off his horse in a moment, 
and Edna was drawn into her brother’s arms, and 
kissed on forehead and lips' with a fervor which 
showed what this brother and sister were to each 
other. 

Then, as the stranger alighted, Paul Randolph in- 
troduced him to his sister. His name was not 
strange, although his face was to Edna, for Philip 
Denison had been the classmate and dearest friend 
of her brother. He was the son of a Georgia 
planter, and the young men were physically a per- 
fect antithesis to each other. The Northern student 
was fair, with brown clustering curls of hair, and 
dark-blue eyes, with a fine, frank, intelligent, 
thoughtful face; a figure of medium size, which a 
boyhood of much outdoor life and exercise had de- 
veloped into muscular force and elasticity. The 
Southerner was of the same hight, but somewhat 
slighter built; a dark face, handsomer than his 
friend’s, with a frank smile and a fascinating man- 
ner; highly cultivated in every respect; impetuous, 
generous, of quick, sensuous temperament, easily 
roused to indignation, easily stirred into generous 
and heroic sentiment; such was the character of 
Philip Denison, the friend of Paul Randolph. 

And some tie, deeper than the ordinary associa- 
tions of college life, drew these young men together; 


346 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 


for Paul had once been in deadly peril, and his 
friend had rescued him at the risk of his own life. 
A party of classmates had gone out one afternoon 
for c sail. They started with a brisk wind, which 
gradually grew into a gale. The two small boats 
were out on the Sound some distance from any 
land, except a small island, which their only safety 
depended on their making. Paul was in the smaller 
boat, and his classmates resigned the management 
of the little craft to him. 

Had he been a less skillful steersman, they must 
inevitably have foundered. The waves fought and 
tore themselves into foam about them, lifting up 
their arms, and clutching and roaring like wild 
beasts for their prey, and washing the little crew 
with their salt agony, as they retired cheated and 
baffled, and then came thundering back in mighty 
squadrons, rushing at the little boat, which bent 
and fluttered and rose, and lived on in the midst 
of that terrible sea. But just as Paul Randolph 
rose to give some order, she suddenly lurched on 
the side where he stood, with such force as nearly 
to upset her, and when she righted once more Paul 
was overboard. 

His terrified classmates saw him rise and strike 
out boldly for them, and he had nearly reached the 
larger boat to which the waves carried him, when 
she too, lurching on one side, struck him a terrible 
blow, which took away his breath and his strength. 
There was no use struggling longer against those 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 34? 

fearful waves. It was evident that Paul Randolph 
was going down. 

Then, Philip Denison, who had watched his friend 
in white solicitude for his safety, with that gener- 
ous impulsiveness which was a part of his nature, 
sprang into the sea, caught his friend, and put out 
with him for the island, Paul swimming feebly, and 
half supported by his classmate. It was a terrible 
struggle, but they reached the land at last. 

“You have saved my life, Philip,” gasped Paul, 
and then he fell senseless upon the wet beach. 

The boats, with their half-drowned crew, made 
the shore at last; not a soul was lost. Paul Ran- 
dolph was restored after a while. He was not a 
man ever to forget that his friend had risked his 
life for him; and so it came to pass that these two, 
the Southerner and the Northerner, loved each 
other like brothers. 

The gentlemen and the lady went together into 
the house. Of course Edna did not meet this friend 
and classmate of her brother, the preserver of his 
life, with the ordinary courtesy which she would 
have extended to a stranger. She had heard so 
frequently of him for years — his name was so 
familiar, and linked with so sacred a debt of grati- 
itude under their roof, that it seemed to her she 
could find no words in which fitly to embody her 
welcome to their new guest; but the sweet eyes 
bore witness for her, as lifting them to Philip Deni- 
son’s face, she said: 


348 THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 

“You are welcome, sir, to our home — welcome 
as no other friend in the world would be, for Paul’s 
sake." 

So a new warmth and color spread themselves 
over the gray tints of the life of Edna Randolph. 
She walked no more alone on the veranda when the 
storms were abroad, and the fogs unfurled their 
gray tents on the hills. The young men made, of 
course, new life in the house. Edna was never 
lonely where Paul was, and there was always some 
new enterprise on hand, or some new topic of con- 
versation to interest and amuse her. She could not 
now tell which she enjoyed most, the sunny days or 
the stormy ones; the days in which they had sleigh 
rides, or went, after the sunshine had loosened the 
swaddling bands of snow, into the forest searching 
for green and gray lichens, and mosses, and swamp 
berries; or the evenings when they all gathered 
about the glowing wood fires — for the farmer, al- 
though his house and lands bore witness to the 
readiness with which he embraced most improve- 
ments of the age, was inflexible in regard to stoves 
and furnaces, and here Edna cordially sympathized 
with her father’s preferences. She loved the great, 
picturesque, glowing tents of flame in the large fire- 
places, and the rich glow with which they filled the 
rooms: and so around these great fireplaces there 
sat three young faces now, full of youth, manliness, 
earnestness, or the grace and sweetness of woman- 
hood; and that elder face, full of the nameless at- 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 349 

traction of a good and honorable old age. The talk 
in these evenings was a pleasant thing to listen to. 
It glanced on all topics, in its bright desultory way; 
and it was a banquet at which Edna sat, and her 
soul feasted. 

The young students were both men of no ordinary 
culture ; and though widely unlike in temperament 
and character, they harmonized wonderfully in their 
views on most of the wide range of topics which 
came under their discussion. 

Edna used to watch her father at these times; 
the silver hairs shining like sea foam about his face ; 
his look of pleased, absorbed attention, as he sat 
there opening and shutting his eyes, or turning 
them from his son to his friend, as one or the other 
took up the conversation. It was a home scene of 
quiet and content rarely equaled. 

There was, however, one topic which was at first 
mutually ignored. That Winter, only two years 
ago, the cloud which so long had spread murky and 
threatening along the edges of our political horizon, 
had now risen over the land till all the people 
heard the thunderings and the lightnings thereof. 
We all know how that Winter passed in vague 
doubt and dread, and fearful glances to the future ; 
how promptness, decision, energy were most want- 
ing where most they were needed ; what confusion, 
and rage, and threatening filled the councils of our 
nation ; and how true hearts all over the land asked 
themselves, “What shall the end of these things 


350 THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 

be?” And the answer was that one appalling thing 
from which God has not delivered us. 

The old farmer had first seen the light in that 
quiet which followed the Revolution. His father 
had suffered, his mother had toiled and endured as 
the men and women of the Revolution did fight and 
toil for their country, through that long seven 
years of anguish and sacrifice for her deliverance. 
And the farmer’s boyhood had opened in a social 
and moral atmosphere, where love to one’s country 
was held next to one’s love of God. His native 
land — her Government, her liberties, her prosperity 
were dearer to him than his life; and whatever 
forces struck at these, struck, of course, to the very 
heart and quick of the old man’s life. The love of 
his country was a part of his nature, ingrained into 
his very life; and it is needless to add with what 
feelings he would receive the barest suggestion of 
a disruption of that Union which his fathers had 
bought with their blood, or of the dishonor of that 
flag whose stars had shone over his childhood, and 
which had been about his whole life a shield of pro- 
tection, honor, and glory, and under which he 
fondly hoped to die. 

Philip Denison, the young Georgian, was South- 
ern in his opinions, tastes, and habits; he was of 
impetuous, fiery nature, quick to take offense, and 
therefore to give it, when any feature of domestic, 
. social, or political life in the South was disapproved. 
Still, he had been for several years a resident of 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 351 

the North; and his natural kindliness of heart, and 
a wide acquaintance in, and knowledge of New 
England, had somewhat disciplined his vehement 
nature. 

The state of the country in that February of 
eighteen hundred and sixty-one, was certainly an 
. inflammable subject for the old New England farmer 
and the young Georgian to venture on; but they 
did at last, not suspecting what widely-different 
views the discussion would disclose ; for Philip 
Denison was not at that time an advocate of a dis- 
ruption of the Union. 

The whole company at first joined in the talk; 
but Paul, who knew his friend’s real sentiments, 
soon attempted to change the current of conversation. 
It was too late, however, to arrest it; even Edna 
was not able to do this, though she brought her 
woman’s tact to the rescue as soon as she discovered 
the real position of her guest, and had recovered 
from the consequent astonishment and pain which 
the knowledge cost her. She knew well enough her 
father’s convictions, and how deeply they had taken 
root in his soul, and that when his feelings were 
aroused he would not be held back from speaking 
all that was in his heart to any man. 

The conversation grew warm on both sides. In 
vain Paul and Edna interposed — the old man would 
not cease the discussion. The farmer grew indig- 
nant, the guest fiery. Hot words at last passed be- 
tween them; the one forgot his guest, the other 


352 THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 

liis host; and thoroughly angered at last, each said 
some words which, under other circumstances, would 
have been impossible, and then separated. 

“ Father,” pleaded Edna, when her brother and 
his classmate were gone, “ remember he saved Paul’s 
life once.” 

“I know it, child; but those abominable doc- 
trines — abominable! If he was my own son, I’d 
rather see him in his grave than have him hold 
them !” and the old man shook his gray head. 

And then Edna went to their guest, whom Paul 
had failed to appease. I do not presume there 
would seem very much force or argument in what 
she said, if I should write it here; but she said it 
in her woman’s soft, persuasive way, betwixt smiles 
and great tears standing still in her eyes; and 
Philip’s proud spirit yielded to these. There were 
some concessions made on both sides; and so the 
wound was healed, and the sore topic religiously 
avoided after this on all sides. 

That Philip Denison and Edna Eandolph were 
pleased with, interested in each other, nobody who 
knew them both could have doubted. 

The Southerner was a brilliant, fascinating talker, 
with a fine vein of poetry in his character, and he 
and Edna were thrown constantly together during 
these last days of the Winter. 

The girl loved to listen to her guest’s animated, 
picturesque talk; she responded with all the fervor 
of her deep, fine nature to much that was honor- 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 353 

able, heroic, and lovely in the character of Philip 
Denison; her imagination, her womanly reverence 
and tenderness, did them homage. And so, it came 
to pass one day that Edna Randolph sat before a 
revolving stereoscope, which had been her father’s 
gift the previous New- Year, and Philip Denison 
stood on one side, adjusting the pictures in the 
case. Edna had become quite absorbed in a view 
of the Pyramids. The huge, dumb monuments, 
the still, lonely plains, the steel-blue sky, had all 
entranced her, and she sat motionless, holding 
her breath, with fascinated eyes on the strange, 
somber, wonderful picture. At last with a long 
sigh, and a little half-apologetic smile for her 
silence, she drew up her head. Philip Denison had 
taken a chair by her side, and sat watching her, 
and waiting. 

“What a strange, subtile, mysterious attraction 
there is about this ancient land of Egypt!” said 
the lady. 

“Yes; but Miss Edna, it is not of that ancient 
land, but of the new and present one, that I want 
to talk with you now; a talk, too, that must be our 
last alone, for to-morrow I depart from Woodleaf.” 

Surprise, pain, mastered the lady’s face. 

“I thought — I thought you would wait till Paul 
left next week,” she said. 

“I wish I could; but my uncle, from Georgia, 
will be in the city to-morrow night, and I must 
meet him there. I am sorry to go.” 

23 


354 THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 

“I am sorry to have you,” responded, sweet, and 
sad, and steady, the voice of the lady. 

“But, Miss Edna, my regret is not of that ordi- 
nary kind which I should experience on leaving a 
pleasant home where I had been entertained with 
most kindly and gracious hospitality, and enjoyed 
the society of a fair and charming hostess. I am 
going away with a regret such as I never experi- 
enced before, which takes hold of the quick and 
center of my life.” 

She knew what was coming then; she sat very 
still, only her loud heart seemed to choke her. 

And Philip Denison sat still a moment, and then 
he said, 

“Edna, you know what I mean?” 

She — this woman of whom I write — was above 
any affectations and pretty sophistries of word or 
deed at such a time. She said, softly, 

* “Yes.” 

“ And do you love me ?” 

“I don’t know — I think probable — I am afraid 
I do,” in a rapid, stammering way; just as the 
thought was in her heart, so it came to her lips. 

“Afraid, Edna!” and now he leaned over to her 
side. 

“You know,” she said, “there is a great barrier 
betwixt us.” 

“Edna, is that all?” he asked. 

“Yes — all,” she answered. 

“ Our nearts can surmount that,” answered Philip 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 355 

Denison, speaking with a glad triumph out of the 
joy of his heart. 

The lady shook her head. 

“I am afraid,” she said again. “They might 
once have done this; but now things seem drifting 
toward a point which will render it necessary for 
every man to take his stand deliberately, absolutely 
on one side or the other; and you, Philip, in tastes, 
habits, life, every thing, are a Southerner, as I 
am a Northerner.” 

“And do I love you the less for that?” he said, 
with a quick reproach in his tones. 

“Perhaps not, Philip; and yet if it should come, 
as so many fear — as God forbid — to civil war, 
where will you be?” 

“Edna! why should we talk of these things? — 
why should they enter into our love? Are we not 
both Unionists?” 

“You call yourself that, Philip — forgive me. 
You are not a man to use words which do not mean 
facts: you are one now — and for me. I love the 
North, I love the South; for both are my country;” 
and her face outsprang into that radiance which, in 
moments of great fervor and exaltation, was given 
it, to interpret her soul — “and I love better than 
my own life, or any thing it could offer me, that 
old, dear flag for which my fathers suffered and 
died. That cluster of stars is the sign and wit- 
ness to me of the freedom, the religion, the honor, 
the glory of my fatherland. Under its blessed folds 


356 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 


my eyes first saw the light; it has held — God 
bless it! — its strong and tender guardianship about 
all my life; I have never known a happiness or a 
joy outside of it that I did not in some way owe to 
it; and I love it, Philip, with a love which em- 
braces all the gratitude, all the heroism, all that is 
fine and sweet and tender in association, with all 
that is best and truest in me.” 

He looked at her in mingled admiration and ten- 
derness. He was of soul fine enough to appreciate 
the spirit of sacrifice and patriotism. Her enthu- 
siasm magnetized him. 

“So do I love the old flag,” he answered. 

“But, alas! not so well as you love a part of it, 
I fear. If your own State should set herself in 
deadly strife against it, where would you be found ?” 

“ I should still remain, I believe, in heart and sen- 
timent a Unionist,” answered Philip Denison; but 
the heart of the woman detected some want of 
fervor in his tones. 

“You believe — ah, Philip, I could not trust 
you !” and she sat down, bursting into passionate 
tears ; and even Philip Denison did not suspect what 
anguish there was in them. 

He tried to comfort her; he told her she had 
lived there alone with her old father, and listened 
to his talk till she was almost beside herself on this 
subject; and with strong, sweet, persuasive elo- 
quence, he besought her not to let this matter 
blight the lives of both — to give him some word or 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 35 ? 

token which he could carry with him out into the 
world whither he was going. And partly per- 
suaded, and only partly — for it was an inevitable 
necessity of this girl’s truth and honesty, that she 
must look all facts straight in the face, and could 
not turn aside from them and deceive her soul — 
she looked up in his face and smiled a sweet smile, 
a tender one, but full of doubt and sadness. 

“ And do you love me well enough to be my wife, 
0, Edna?” 

“I could, Philip, if”— 

“There, now, not another word of that! I’m 
not going to have any 'if’ in the matter. None 
shall stand in our way.” 

But he could not move her into completing her 
sentence otherwise; and so he said it should stand 
so. He was full of hope and ardor himself, which 
hardly communicated itself in any degree to Edna; 
yet she could not find it in her heart to darken the 
hope for this man whom she loved, and who would 
be her lover. And in a little while Paul and her 
father came in, and the conversation went on widely- 
different topics from the one which had engrossed 
Philip and Edna for an hour. Afterward they had 
only time for a short walk. At the lady’s urgent 
entreaty it was agreed that nothing at that time 
should be communicated to her father or brother; 
but Philip was to return South, and in the Autumn 
he anticipated making another visit to Woodleaf; 
and then he should solicit of the father what he 


358 THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 

had of the daughter. Meanwhile they would write 
to each other. 

And so they separated; and Philip Denison went 
away with his heart full of love, and hope, and 
triumph; and Edna, she went to her own room, 
and looked off to no warm, bright perspective of 
her future — it was full of clouds, and gloom, and 
fear. 

The clouds seemed to gather lower and darker 
over the land; and the man of her love — where 
would he be when the hour of trial came? But 
her face carried its old smile before her father, and 
he and Paul little guessed the ache of the heart 
beneath it. Poor Edna! 

"We all know what followed in a little while — 
the attack on Fort Sumter, the rush of the nation 
to arms. 

When the call for volunteers first reached him, 
Paul Kandolph waited — waited several months for 
his father’s and his sister’s sake, before he spoke; 
and at last he said to them as they sat together 
one evening in the late Summer, 

“Father — Edna, if it were not for you I should 
go to the help of my country now ; but it is not in 
my heart to do this against your will; and if you 
tell me to stay I shall do it.” 

And they did not say it, and Paul Bandolph 
went, three weeks later, the captain of a Woodleaf 
company, and the blessings and prayers of his father 
and his sister followed him. 


THE STORY OP EDNA RANDOLPH. 


359 


Six months passed. It was the opening of March, 
a night of wind and snow, and the “ wild white 
bees of Winter” were swarming thick in the air, 
driven to and fro by the fierce gusts which swept 
over the hills into the valley, where lay the home 
of farmer Randolph. The lights and the evening 
papers had just been placed on the table; for the 
evening mail had just arrived an hour before, and 
Edna and her father came in from supper; for it 
was now her usual time to read to the old man for 
an hour. She tore away the wrappers with her 
quick fingers a little nervously; for the thought of 
Paul was always, if possible, closer to her heart at 
this time. 

“ Is there any news from the war, my daughter ?” 

“ Yes,” running her eyes over the damp columns; 
“ there has been a terrible battle, and we have 
taken Port Donelson;” and then, with a chill at 
her heart, she turned toward the list of the “ wounded 
and killed.” 

“ 0, father !” — the paper fell from her hands, and 
the face of Edna Randolph was like the snow which 
blanketed the earth outside. 

She had seen Paul’s name there, “ dangerously 
wounded!” Poor Edna! Even in that hour of awful 
calamity .she did not forget her father. There was 
no need after that sudden cry that she should tell 
him. He knew all. But with her white, working 
face she crept toward him, and put her arms about 
his neck. 


360 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 


“Is he dead?" came in a husky whisper from the 
old man’s ashen lips. 

“No; but dangerously wounded!” 

And then the old man’s anguish leaped out from 
his heart to his lips, as David the king’s did, and 
exclaimed in his agony : 

“0, Paul, 0, my son, my pride, my first born!” 

Two days they waited; then the tidings came; 
there was. no more fear, no more waiting now. 
Paul Randolph was dead! A month went by — 0, 
hearts stricken like theirs throughout the land, you 
can best tell how — and again Edna and her father 
sat together. They did not leave each other often 
now; and for his sake the girl kept down her own 
anguish, and told the broken-hearted old man, that 
after all, there was much of comfort and blessing 
in this death of Paul; that he had laid down his 
young, brave, heroic life for his country’s sake; 
and that his name, too, was among the dead — the 
noble, the honorable, the glorious dead! 

And the old man’s lips would search for a faint 
smile, and he would say, “Bless you, my daughter!” 
in tones which did Edna’s broken heart good. They 
had not brought in the lights that night; she had 
waved them back from the door, for the full moon 
was looking in at the windows and spilling .over the 
room its streams of silver, and filling it with its 
white, solemn radiance. Edna and her father sat 
there for an hour, it might be, in utter silence. 
Then she went up to her father and put her arms 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 361 

around his neck in the old way ; and there was a 
mute appeal in the movement. 

“What is it, my daughter?” 

“Father,” she said, “I am tired of this life — of 
this slow, inactive, wearing life, with its leaden 
hours, and its great loss and grief eating into my 
soul. I want to do some work, to render some serv- 
ice for my country. Surely God has not appointed 
me to sit down with folded hands in the sackcloth 
and ashes of my desolation. I must work or I shall 
die. Father, let me go to the hospitals at Wash- 
ington, and do what I can there for my sick and 
wounded countrymen !” 

And her father answered: 

“You shall go, my daughter, but not alone. I 
can not stay here in the old house without either 
of my children. I will go with you, to watch over 
and shelter you as only a father can.” 

And Edna's soft, warm hand dropped amid her 
father’s hair, white as the snows of the last Winter. 

“I felt you would say that,” she said, “and I felt, 
too, it would be better for both of us.” 

So the father and daughter went away, and the 
pleasant house at Woodleaf was left silent and de- 
serted. 

Three months have passed. The June sunshine 
looks into the long rows of windows,' and the winds 
which have the musky fragrance of the Summer, 
wander softly over the long rows of beds, upon 
which lay the sick, the wounded, and the dying. 


362 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 


And over the beds, and moving softly in their 
midst, were the tender, pitying faces, the soothing, 
ministering hands of women — women, to whom 
those dim eyes and pallid faces looked up as the 
eyes of little children look up to the faces of their 
mothers. And here Edna Randolph had come, and 
here she had worked faithfully — faithfully by night 
and by day. 

She had bathed many a face flushed with hot 
fever, till* the sick man, with the fire in his brain, 
and the race in his pulse, babbled of mountain 
snows, and the plash of cool streams by his own 
door; and her sweet smile, her soft, pitying voice 
had cheered and comforted the heart of many a 
sick soldier, and the hand of the dying had grown 
cold in her grasp, and she had caught the last, faint 
whisper of those who would never speak in this 
world again. But this June morning the nurses 
were more busy than usual ; for many fresh invalids 
had been received the night before; and Edna was 
passing to her appointed service, when a low groan 
from a couch close at hand on her right, suddenly 
attracted her attention. 

She turned; a sharp, white face lay there, with 
closed eyes and ashen lips pressed tightly together — 
the face of a young man, a fine, intelligent, forcible 
face, which any where must have attracted you. 
But with the first glance the heart of Edna Ran- 
dolph sprang till it fairly choked her, and she stag- 
gered back, gasping and faint. But the next she 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 363 

leaned forward, and the dying man suddenly opened 
his eyes. They met hers. 

"Edna !” 

"Philip!” 

So they met — these two who parted more than 
friends nearly a year and a half before. She had 
heard from Philip Denison only a few times aftei 
he had left Woodleaf, and his letters were the manly, 
tender, ardent letters of a man to the one woman 
he loved best on earth. Then he had returned to 
his home, the mails had stopped, and Edna had 
learned no more — only she feared. The young 
Southerner put out his hand, and she took it in 
both of hers, and her living face was white as his 
dying one. 

"0, Philip, to meet you here, and so!” she said. 

He looked at her, the words struggled up to his 
lips — 

"Where is Paul?” 

"In heaven, we humbly trust,” answered Edna 
Eandolph. 

And Philip Denison groaned, and wrenched his 
hand from hers, and covered his face. A new fear 
shook Edna from head to foot. 

"0, Philip, say it was not you — say it was not 
you !” she cried. 

"It was I, Edna. We met foes on- the battle- 
field. I did not know him till I had struck the 
blow and seen him fall, and then I was borne away 
by the rush of men, and I could not learn whether 


364 THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 

he was wounded or dead — I, who would have died 
in his stead, and once risked my life to save his." 

And having made his confession, Philip Denison 
looked up in her face. Poor Edna ! But she had 
not left his bedside; she was standing there still. 
Something in her face made him say, 

“ Edna, can you forgive me ?" 

And in a moment she answered, 

“ I forgive you, as Paul would." 

A smile struggled out on Philip Denison’s face. 
He sought for her hand. 

“0, Edna, I can die in peace now!" 

She bent down and kissed the cold forehead. 

“Edna," he whispered, “I have loved you through 
it all." 

“ I knew you did, Philip, because I did you.” 

She slipped her arm under his head. 

“Is there no hope for you, Philip?" 

“None; the ball struck me two days ago, near 
my heart.” 

The words came husky and difficult. The dying 
soldier’s eyes grew dim. She bent nearer to him. 
He looked up in her face, and the old smile of Philip 
Denison struggled out on his lips. 

“0, Edna, I thank God that he sent you here to 
let me die looking on your face, just as though you 
were my very own wife !’’ 

And Edna thanked God then, out of all the ach- 
ing and anguish of her heart. His face was falling 
into the coldness and calmness of death. His lips 


THE STORY OF EDNA RANDOLPH. 


365 


moved. She put down her wet cheek a little closer 
to his lips, and the last prayer of Philip Denison 
was breathed into her ear. It was, “God be mer- 
ciful to me a sinner!” and with that most fitting 
prayer the soul of Philip Denison went out, Edna 
hoped, into the warmth and welcome of the home 
where there shall be “no more war.” 







NATHAN! NATHAN!” 


<1 


AN OLD MAN’S STORY. 


“ Nathan! Nathan !” 

Sixty years ago this very day, the voice— the 
soft, tender, thrilling voice of my mother — came 
across the wide pasture lot and into the field, where 
I had been busy all day gathering up cornstalks 
and making bonfires, which, as I was just outside 
of my fourteenth birthday, I enjoyed like any frolic. 
I looked up, and there stood my mother, in her 
checked apron and snowy “short-gown,” shading 
her eyes with her hands; and though I am an old, 
old man now, and the brown curls which fluttered 
thickly about my forehead then, are a few strag- 
gling locks, white as fresh snow on the tops of the 
mountains, still that picture of my mother, standing 
at the lot bars, hangs itself over threescore years, 
and shines down brightly into my memory now; and 
the voice comes down, through its long path of 
green Summers and white Winters, without losing 
one tone or inflection, and stirs my heart yet with 
its motherly sweetness — “Nathan! Nathan!” 


368 


“ NATHAN ! NATHAN!” 


I had just laid a light branch at the foot of a 
huge pyramid of brushwood and cornstalks, when 
my mother’s voice came through the stillness and 
the spicy fragrance of the May afternoon, and I 
stopped for a moment to see the mass ignite, and 
then hurried across the pasture lot opposite our 
house — our old, ample, yellow farm-house, whose 
foundations had been laid by my grandfather before 
the Revolution. 

“What is to pay, mother?” I asked, as I panted 
up to her, for her face was full of perplexity and 
annoyance. 

“The minister’s come!” She paused a moment 
after making this announcement, so that it might 
have due weight and impressiveness with me, and 
then she went on; “I never was so flustrated in 
my born days. Your father ’s three miles off at Rye 
Neck, pullin’ stumps; and Jerushy started off right 
after dinner, to help Thankful Turner get ready for 
her quiltin’ to-morrow. 

“ It seems there was some mistake in the message 
he sent to your father, and Mr. Willetts was to 
come Thursday instead of next Tuesday, as we ex- 
pected. I have n’t had my front-room curtains done 
up, and I had dreadful poor luck with my last 
bakin’ — Miss Morgan’s emptyin’s was, to my mind, 
a little turned — and I r’ally felt as though I should 
like to have the floor open and swallow me up, 
when I went to the door, and there stood the 
sprucest-looking young man I ’ve sot my eyes on 


“ nathan! nathan!” 


369 


for many a day; and says he, with jist the winnin’est 
smile, ' Does Deacon Cummins reside here, ma’am ?' 
‘Yes, sir, but he ’s out now,’ I said, wonderin’ 
who he could be. But he soon satisfied me, for he 
answered, ‘ It ’s Mr. Willetts, the new minister, 
ma’am.’ ” 

“What did you do then, mother?” I said, in a 
deeply-sympathetic frame of mind, for I was the 
only son of a New England deacon, and I had been 
educated with all that reverence and awe of the 
clerical profession, which was so deeply ingrained 
into the social and religious life of our Puritan 
ancestors. 

“I was dreadfully taken down, but I asked him 
to walk in, and I showed him up to the spare 
chamber. I put on the valance last week, and 
sanded the floor fresh this very mornin’; and then 
I started straight for you, and it won’t do for me to 
stand here talkin’ another minit.” 

“Wall, mother, what is it you want of me? I jist 
wish the parson had kept away till next Thursday, 
and not come botherin’ us at jist the wrong time,” 
I continued, angrily stripping a tall mullen stalk of 
its broad leaves, for I in no wise relished the idea 
of being called from making bonfires to waiting on 
ministers. 

“Hush, my son! Your father wouldn’t like to 
hear you talk in that way of havin’ a minister un- 
der our roof.” But I had an intuition that my 

mother’s honest sentiments respecting the parson’s 
24 


370 


“ NATHAN ! NATHAN!' 


advent fully concurred with my own, though of 
course she would not express them as I did. 

“And now, Nathan, I want you to be as spry as 
a lark, and catch a chicken and kill it, and I ’m in 
hopes to have it picked and a-bilin' afore the parson 
leaves his room; then you must tackle up Major, and 
then you must go over to Four Corners to Mrs. 
Turner’s, and bring Jerushy home in double-quick 
time. It won’t do to waste another minit talkin’. 
Now, Nathan, do n’t let grass grow under your 
feet.” 

My mother started for the house, and I for the 
barn-yard, with no very amiable emotions toward the 
parson; and as I could not vent my indignation on 
that individual himself, I managed to make a small 
dog, which ran across my path, the innocent victim 
of my wrath, by striking him with a stone, which 
sent him limping and yelling away. 

The chicken was soon decapitated, and by the 
time I had harnessed Major I w^s in a better frame 
of mind, and a brisk ride of half an hour brought me 
to the red farm-house, facing two of the four roads 
which had christened the left wing of the old, 
straggling town of Greenfield. Streams of laughter 
poured in silvery currents through the open cham- 
ber windows, and seemed like a sweet tune set to 
that jubilant May afternoon, for she stood arrayed- 
in garments fairer than those of “Solomon in all his 
glory” — garments which the marvelous looms of 
the sunshine and the early rains had woven for her, 


“NATHAN! NATHAN 1 . 1 


371 


and embroidered the robe with dandelions, and 
seamed it with sweet wild violets, and overshot it 
with white clover. 

I was a boy then, and the aesthetic element had 
had little stimulant or cultivation in the cool, brisk, 
practical life amid which my boyhood blossomed; 
but I felt the voice and language of that May after- 
noon; and the silvery, careless laughter of the girls 
in the chamber overhead filled my heart like a 
chime of bells, as I reined up and tied my horse 
to the old post in front of the Widow Turner’s 
dwelling. 

I struck the brass knocker, and Jerusha put her 
head out of the chamber window; and in all the 
town of Greenfield no sweeter face could have been 
seen than that of my sister, Jerusha Cummins, 
as it framed itself in the old brown window-casing 
that Spring afternoon. 

So young, so fresh, so full of health and bloom it 
was, with smiles lurking in the wide blue eyes, and 
dimpling archly the cheeks, in which carnations 
were set, that you could not choose but love it at 
the first glance; and about it, like a fitting frame, 
lay the thick, silky, dark hair, full of golden lights 
and heavy shadows. 

“Nathan Cummins, I ’d like to know what in the 
world has brought you over here?” exclaimed my 
sister, in a tone where surprise and apprehension 
struggled together, for it was evident she feared that 
I had come with a summons for her to return home, 


372 “ NATHAN ! NATHAN!” 

and was alarmed lest some untoward event had made 
it necessary. 

“ Let me come up stairs and I ’ll tell you/' for 
the merriment in the front chamber had stimulated 
my boyish curiosity. 

“Well, hurry up, then;” and I was not slow in 
obeying this injunction, although I knew very well 
that I was the bearer of very unwelcome tidings. 

There were some half dozen girls scattered about 
the great, old-fashioned chamber, in the center of 
which stood the quilt, inclosed in the long frames; 
and on one side of the sheet of white and pink 
patchwork stood Jerusha, a ball of chalk in one 
hand and a cord in the other, with which imple- 
ments she and the bride elect were bestowing a 
border of “shell pattern” around the margin of the 
quilt, while two others were working the corner 
scallops — and Mrs. Turner, a little, dumpy, keen- 
eyed woman, was stoning raisins, with the assist- 
ance of two others of Thankful’s young friends. 

My first glance took in all these things, while 
there was a general cessation of fingers and tongues, 
and every eye was bent on me, as I delivered my 
errand. 

“Jerushy, Parson Willetts has just come to our 
house, and mother ’s in an awful stew, ’cause, father ’s 
at the Neck, and wants you to come home right 
straight off!” 

“0, that’s too bad!” was the regretful chorus 
which followed my announcement. 


“ nathan! nathan!” 


373 


“ I jist wish the parson had kept away till I ’d 
got my quilt marked, Jerushy,” said Thankful 
Turner, a pretty girl of twenty, whose face re- 
peated her mother’s, softened and tinted with 
bloom. 

“I wish so too,” subjoined Jerusha, the corners 
of her pretty mouth deepened into a pout. 

“We’d jist got a goin’ nicely with these shells, 
and I meant to have got round the quilt before 
sundown, and now I must leave it. I wonder, for 
my part, why the parson did n’t see far enough to 
keep away this perticerler afternoon, at least. It ’s 
right down provokin’ to think of,” added Thankful 
Turner. 

“Girls! girls!” interposed Mrs. Turner, with an 
objurgatory shake of the head. “I can’t allow a 
minister of the Gospel to be talked of in that ’ere 
fashion.” 

“I was havin’ such a good time,” said Jerusha, 
as she tied on her bonnet, and tried to keep the 
tears of vexation out of her blue eyes. “And now 
I ’ve got to go home and sit before Parson Willetts, 
as prim and starch as though it was an awful sin to 
smile, and a laugh outright was too dreadful a thing 
to be thought of. I never could get on with minis- 
ters, any how.” 

This was scarcely surprising, for the few gray- 
haired, solemn-visaged representatives of the profes- # 
sion, who visited at our house, would not be apt to 
enlist the very warm sympathies or admiration of a 


374 


“NATHAN! NATHAN !” 


young girl, impulsive, and overflowing with life and 
spirits, like my sister, Jerusha Cummins. 

“Jerushy, I am afeared if your heart was in jist 
the right place, you would n’t be so set agin minis- 
ters,” added Mrs. Turner, “ and I must say it, sorry 
as I feel to have you leave us at this time.” 

And the little woman was right: and Jerusha 
lived to see it — lived to separate the outward con- 
ventional sanctimoniousness from the inward heart 
and spirit, and then she found in those old Puritan 
ministers the elements of a true, strong, honest 
manhood; she felt the spirit of submission to God, 
and love to man, which was the grand ruling pur- 
pose of their lives — she understood their self-sacri- 
fice, their devotion; she honored the steadfast zeal 
which counted all things but loss for the knowledge 
and the approval of Him whom they served, as 
being invisible; while all honors, and potentates, 
and powers, all fashions of this world faded into 
insignificance before that one mightiest message, 
which they believed the King of kings had or- 
dained them to deliver unto men. 

Jerusha and I hardly spoke to each other on our 
way home. My sympathy in her disappointment 
■by no means increased my stock of good-will for 
'the minister; but I obtruded my share of our mu- 
tual trial on her attention, though, I presume, it 
shrank into very small proportions by the side of 
her own gigantic trouble. 

“ I sha’ n’t get my field cleared now afore father 


“nathan! nathan!’ 


375 


comes home. I ’d jisfc got a heap blazin’ when 
mother called me off, to kill a chicken afore I 
started for you.” 

“Do you hush up, Nathan, ” exclaimed Jerusha, 
in tones one would hardly have recognized. “ 1 ’m 
too exasperated to speak about it.” 

“Wall, Jerushy, it’s amazin’ the time you’ve 
took to get here,” began mother, as she met us at 
the kitchen door, with a very red face, and a very 
flurried manner. “I’ve jist been in a perfect fever 
for the last hour.” 

Jerusha did not condescend to make any reply. 
She w r alked into the room next to the parlor, with 
a look of settled resignation on her fair face, and 
removed her bonnet; and I helped her set out the 
table. 

Then mother bustled into the room. “I want 
you to get down the pink cheeny and rub up the 
old silver cream-pot,” she said. “I must have some 
of my best preserves on the table — them in the 
yaller jar, I did up in loaf sugar last Fall. Why, 
what ails you, Jerushy!” for, looking up, our mother 
saw the cloud which darkened the fair face of the 
child. 

Then Jerusha’s pent-up disappointment and vexa- 
tion broke out, unable longer to control themselves. 

“I should think there was matter enough!” she 
exclaimed, as she shook out the folds of the linen' 
table-cloth my mother had spun before her mar- 
riage. “When I’m sent for, as though it was a 


376 


“ nathan! nathan ! 1 


matter of life and death, to get supper for some old 
blind parson that don't know enough to keep from 
bothering folks’ lives out, I ’m free to say that I 
have n’t got a spark of patience left. I ’d like to 
know how Thankful Turner ’s to get along with her 
quilt; for nobody else knows the round-shell pat- 
tern, and the whole thing ’ll be sp’iled ; and the 
quiltin’ ’s coming off to-morrow, and she to be mar- 
ried a week later, and I to be bridesmaid. I s’pose, 
though, a parson’s supper’s of so much more im- 
portance than common folks’ quiltin’s and weddin’s, 
that they ’re not to be mentioned in the same day.” 

“Jerushy! Jerushy!” said mother, in a tone of 
solemn warning. 

“ I can’t help it,” bestowing the pink china cups 
on the waiter. “It’s the most aggravatin’ thing 
that ever happened in my born days. I ’m bound 
not to sleep this night afore I ’ve got that double 
border of shells on Thankful Turner’s quilt. But I 
must say that I never knew a minister that didn't 
come at jist the wrong time. It 's a faculty they 
have; and bein’ a deacon’s daughter, I can speak 
from experience.” 

“Jerushy,” interposed mother, “I never heard 
you go on so in my born days ! What would your 
father say to hear you talk in that style? It isn’t 
a week since he told me that it was one of the 
strongest desires of his heart to see you the wife of 
a parson !” 

“Catch me!” exclaimed Jerusha, with a toss of 


“ NATHAN! NATHAN ! 1 


377 


her pretty head, and a fresh blossoming of the car- 
nations in her round cheeks. “ I *11 live and die an 
old maid first.” 

Our mother gave a groan at this exhibition of 
her daughters obduracy; but a loud sputtering 
from the “ spider” in the kitchen, where the chicken 
was frying, took her suddenly off, and Jerusha 
turned to me, saying, “ Nathan, you jist go to the 
best room closet, and bring me the yaller jar on the 
second shelf, and mind you don’t break it. Boys 
are al’ays so clumsy.” 

There was only a small front “ entry” separating 
the room in which my sister was preparing tea, and 
the one which was only used on state occasions; 
and as I entered the latter I was almost paralyzed 
by seeing a young man sitting in the great arm- 
chair by the window, one cheek resting on his 
hand, while an amused smile was hiding itself about 
his mouth, combated by an expression of some an- 
noyance. He was tall and slight, and his thin, 
thoughtful, handsome face suited the figure. His 
eyes and hair were a dark brown, and he must have 
been several years this side of thirty. 

It flashed into my mind like lightning that this 
was the young parson, and that he must have heard 
every word my sister had spoken; for her voice 
was raised, and the doors of both rooms were stand- 
ing ajar. 

I stood still, too overwhelmed to utter a word, or 
move hand or foot; but the young minister came 


378 


“ nathan! nathan ! 1 


straight forward and took my hand, and said, with 
a smile, which gave a new warmth and beauty to 
his pale, handsome face, “I am very glad to see 
you, my boy! I oame down stairs about five min-, 
utes ago, and hope I am not intruding here.” 

I attempted to answer Parson Willetts, but the 
words died in my throat. I think that he pitied 
my confusion, understanding perfectly the cause of 
it; for he asked, “Are you in quest of any thing 
here ?” 

“I want the yaller jar in the closet,” I stam- 
mered. 

He went toward it and opened the door, while I 
followed like one in a dream; but the shelf was too 
high, and at that moment my sister’s voice floated 
in to me. 

“Nathan, are you staying to help yourself to the 
preserves first?” 

“Let me assist you,” said the parson, and he 
reached down the small earthen jar, and placed it 
in my hands, and this time there was a smile on 
his lips, which his eyes repeated. 

I hurried back to my sister, who was just dispos- 
ing the knives and forks around the table, in a more 
composed frame of mind after her ebullition of irri- 
table feeling. “Jerushy,” I gasped, “the parson’s 
in the parlor, and he ’s overheard every word you ’ve 
said!” She gave me a look of bewilderment and 
fright, and the blossoms grew small in her cheeks. 
She started toward the door, scarcely conscious of 


“uathan! nathan!” 37 U 

wliat she was doing, but anxious to satisfy herself 
of the truth of my statement. 

The young minister had gone to the table to ex- 
amine some volumes which lay there, and so Jerusha 
did not see him till she had advanced into the room, 
when the- young man turned and confronted her. 

It would not be an easy matter to depict the 
pitiable confusion of Jerusha Cummins at that 
moment. She had conceived Parson Willetts a typ- 
ical representative of the stately old Puritan min- 
ister — stiff, solemn, dignified; and when she saw the 
young parson, with his handsome, scholarly face and 
courteous bearing, and recalled the feelings she had 
expressed regarding his inopportune visit, and her 
general opinions respecting his profession, all power 
of speech forsook her; and with her sweet, young 
face covered with blushes and making it look pret- 
tier than ever, she stood dumb before the minister. 

He attempted to set her at ease. “This is Dea- 
con Cummins’s daughter, I presume?” he said. 
“There is no need of my introducing myself.” 

Jerusha tried to answer, but the words would not 
leave the poor girl’s quivering lips; instead of 
which there came a sob; and breaking down into 
tears and mortification, Jerusha buried her face in 
her hands and sank into a chair. 

“How, Miss Cummins, I beg you won’t give 
yourself a moment’s unhappiness about any thing 
to which I may have been an unintentional listener. 
I made all the noise I could to attract your atten- 


380 


“ nathan! nathan ! ! 


tion, and was debating whether I had better an- 
nounce myself by closing the door, which you must 
have seen me do, when your brother entered. I 
regret very much that you should have been sum- 
moned home on my account; but, being neither 
very old, nor very gray-haired, I shall not include 
myself in that list of my brethren who have 
been so unfortunate as to have incurred your dis- 
like.” 

Jerusha lifted her tearful face at these words. 
She saw the smile which lurked in the minister’s 
eyes, and being herself a young person of uncon- 
trollable risibles, and keen sense of the ridiculous, 
she burst out into a quick, leaping laugh, in which 
Parson Willetts heartily joined. 

The laugh reached our mother, who had just 
placed her platter of fried chicken, done to the or- 
thodox brown, in the center of a table flanked with 
a mound of smoking biscuit and a pyramid of tempt- 
ing crullers, with preserves and tumuli of black- 
berry jam, all delicious enough to allure the appe- 
tite of any mortal, whether minister or otherwise. 
She went to the door and looked into the parlor, 
but the minister and Jerusha were not within her 
range of vision, and she turned back to me with an 
expression of great bewilderment on her face. 

“What does it all mean, Nathan?” she asked; 
for I was standing near the door. 

“0,. nothing much, only Parson Willetts and Je- 
rushy are having a little joke together.” 


“ nathan ! nathan!’ 


381 


“ Seems to me they 've got acquainted in mighty 
quick time ” — pouring the cream into the cups pre- 
paratory to announcing the supper. 

But, at that moment, father entered the room, 
and was at once informed of our guest's arrival. 
Of course he was not long in welcoming the min- 
ister, as mother was in great trepidation lest her 
chicken and coffee should get cold. 

I shall never forget that first supper of Parson 
Willetts at our house. It was as much as Jerusha 
or I could do to keep a straight face on while the 
blessing was being asked; but we both got sobered 
as father and Parson Willetts went into a long con- 
versation on the state of the Church, the prospects 
of the crops that harvest, the sudden death of Par- 
son Minor, after being settled for “up'ard of fifty 
years" over the South Presbyterian Church, in the 
town of Greenfield; and the inauguration of the 
new President. 

At last, in some pause which slipped into their 
conversation, the minister said, glancing from my 
sister's face to my mother's, “Your daughter re- 
sembles you strikingly, Mrs. Cummins.” 

“Yes,” answered my father, glancing at the little 
pale-faced woman who sat at the head of the table, 
with an expression which said he saw her still in 
the “first blossoming of her womanhood,” when her 
cheeks were like the meadow roses she used to wind 
in her hair. “ Jerushy 's the complete picture of what 
her mother was at nineteen; and as for Nathan 


382 


“ nathan! nathan!’ 


here, lie’s a reg’lar chip of the old block — all Cum- 
mins, and not a bit of Warner in him.” 

I looked at my father, the strong-built, muscular, 
stalwart, sun-burnt farmer that he was, and won- 
dered if I should ever be like him. 

“ Nathan,” said my father, as he rose from the 
table, “you and Jerry must milk the cows this 
evenin’, and then I want you to step over to Squire 
Platt’s and tell him I ’ll call to-morrow and see 
about takin’ that yoke of oxen.” 

“You can take Squire Platt’s in the way when 
you come home from Four Corners,” interposed 
mother; “for you must carry Jerushy right back to 
Mrs. Turner’s. Never mind the dishes, Jerushy, 
I’ll do all the chores; for it won’t do to have 
Thankful Turner’s weddin’ quilt sp’iled.” 

“I should like to take a look at some part of 
the town of Greenfield,” said the young minister; 
“and with your permission, Miss Cummins, I will 
save your brother the trouble of carrying you over 
to the Four Corners.” 

“Thank you, sir. I should be much pleased to 
have you,” answered Jerushy, betwixt a blush and 
a smile; and she went after her bonnet, and her 
mother followed and entreated her to “behave 
steady, and remember she was in a minister’s com- 
pany, and not go to cuttin’ up any of her jokes.” 

“He looks pretty young,” said my father to my 
mother, as he returned from the “barn-gate,” which 
he had just closed after the wagon which con- 


“ nathan! nathan ! 1 


383 


tained the minister and Jerusha; “but he seems 
a sound-minded, well-eddicated ; pious young man; 
and it isn’t al’ays in age that wisdom resides. I 
hope if he comes among us that his labors will be 
greatly blessed.” 

“I hope so, Richard,” she said. “I must say I 
took a fancy to him from the first; he’s such a 
pleasant-spoken, handsome-faced young man.” 

“Fine feathers don’t make fine birds al’ays, 
mother,” said father, taking out his weekly news- 
paper. 

“ Wall, you did n’t say so once, Nathan Cum- 
mins, when you went down to the old fort every 
Wednesday and Sunday night,” retorted my mother, 
with a smile which brought back something of the 
lost beauty of her youth to her face. 

What reply father made I never knew; for at 
that moment I caught sight of our “hired man,” 
who was driving the cows home from pasture; and 
seizing my cap I rushed after them. 

The “round shell border” was achieved, although 
Jerusha had to sit up till “ nigh upon one o'clock,” 
and averred that she was, in consequence, a perfect 
fright at the quiltin’ next day. 

But, as nobody else concurred in that young lady’s 
opinion respecting her personal appearance, I am 
inclined to think it was only one of those slight ex- 
pansions of the truth, in which her sex are so apt 
to indulge. 

I know that every body said they had a lively 


384 


“ NATHAN ! NATHAN !” 


time at widow Turner’s, and I have the best of 
reasons for supposing the sudden advent of the 
new minister was duly commented on; and that his 
personal appearance, and all sorts of speculations 
embracing his attachments and future relations, al- 
ternated with gossip and jests about the wedding 
which was to transpire the next week. My sister 
was Thankful Turner’s bridesmaid, and Mr. Wil- 
letts performed the marriage ceremony, and looked, 
so some of the younger portion of the guests de- 
clared, as though he would have liked very much 
to join in some of the plays which always accom- 
panied a wedding in those days, if his profession 
had not interdicted it. 

The following Summer Mr. Willetts was duly in- 
stalled as pastor of the South Presbyterian Church 
of Greenfield; and although there was some slight 
dissent among the older members on account of his 
youth, still I know that Mr. Willetts was regarded 
by most of his congregation as a young man of ex- 
ceeding promise; and they affirmed that no sermons 
had ever issued from the pulpit of the South Pres- 
byterian Church like those which were heard every 
Sunday from the lips of Parson Willetts; and I may 
be permitted to add here my own testimony, founded 
on years of most intimate, personal friendship with 
the man, that his own life was an embodiment of 
the principles which he preached, and that his was 
one of those, of whom the Master said at the close 
of his long, faithful work of love, “Well done, good 


“nathan! nathan! 


385 


and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy 
Lord?” 

The young minister remained at our house a 
month before he went to board with Mrs. Minor, 
the widow of our former pastor; for the old lady 
still occupied the parsonage. 

We all became much attached to our minister, 
and greatly regretted his leaving our house; but we 
used to see him frequently, for he always had some 
Church business with “Deacon Cummins," which 
brought him over to our house every few evenings, 
and he insisted there was no spot which seemed so 
much like home to him in all Greenfield. Jerusha 
and he got on very nicely together, notwithstanding 
his first inauspicious advent at our house; and I 
know it frequently happened that the minister's 
calls at our house fell on evenings when my father 
and mother had gone to a “tea-drinking" at some 
neighbor's, and that Mr. Willetts had a habit of 
walking home with my parents and sister from the 
weekly prayer meeting. 

I know, too, that Jerusha's father and mother 
underwent a great deal of anxiety on account of her 
high spirits and love of fun, which she could not 
restrain before the minister, notwithstanding her 
father's frequent warnings, “Jerusha! Jerusha! my 
daughter!" 

I overheard mother lamenting to father this pro' 
clivity of her daughter's one day, when he was 
mending his scythe, and he answered: 

2 5 . 


386 


“ NATHAN! NATHAN \ 


“Wall, mother, it’s in young blood, jist as it's 
in young colts, to run wild for a while, and it ’s no 
use holdin' the rein too tight. It ’s my opinion the 
gal ’ill come out all right in the end, and make jist 
the same sober-minded, sterlin’ woman her mother 
did afore her; and she ’ll see that her daughter came 
honest enough by her love of fun, if she ’ll only look 
back a risin’ of twenty years.” 

“Wall, I’m sure I don’t mean to be hard on 
Jerushy,” responded mother, quite softened by this 
allusion to her own youth. 

One evening, in the following Autumn, I returned 
home late from a neighbor’s, with whose son I had 
been down the river fishing that afternoon. It was 
a still, ripe night, with the large stars hanging 
their golden embroideries along the sky, and the 
sleeping face of the earth was wrapped up in a 
snowy vail of moonlight, which made it fairer than 
the beauty of the day. 

As I approached the gate, I saw Parson Willetts 
and my sister come out of the front door, and the 
voice of the latter floated out to me in the stillness, 
as she suddenly paused on the steps: 

“Won’t you wait a moment, Stephen? I’ll run 
back and get my shawl, if we are to walk as 
far as Berry Bridge, for the dew will be heavy 
returning.” 

“Certainly it will. I am glad to see you take 
some thought for yourself for once, Jerusha;” and 
the girl’s break of light, sweet laughter, was flung 


" nathan! nathan!’ 


387 


back for answer as she went up the stairs. I went 
surreptitiously into the house by the back way, so 
that no one saw me, revolving in my mind what I 
had heard, and scarcely believing the evidence of 
my own ears. 

The next morning I watched my opportunity, 
and went to my sister while she was churning but- 
ter in the milk-room. "Jerushy, didn’t you call 
Mr. Willetts 'Stephen’ last night?” 

She paused. I can see her now, with her hand 
grasping the churn-handle, and the carnations in 
her cheeks suddenly bloomed into wide, bright 
roses, as she asked: 

"How do you know I did?” 

"No matter — I heard you! How dared you do 
such a thing, and he a minister, Jerushy Cum- 
mins?” 

A little half-arch, half-defiant smile played among 
the dimples about her lips. 

"Jerushy,” I said, shocked at what seemed to me 
fresh proof of her audacity, " I 've a good will to go 
straight and tell father, and I shall if you ever do 
so again! What would he say?” 

And as I was indignantly going away, after de- 
livering this threat, my sister’s voice summoned me 
back. 

"See here, Nathan,” she said, with a great 
twinkle of fun in her eyes, although she managed 
to keep her lips tolerably quiet, "supposin’ Mr. 
Willetts has told me that he would never consent 


388 


“ NATHAN! NATHAN T 


to my callin’ him, any thing but Stephen as long as 
I live, what then?” 

This presented a new aspect to the matter. I 
stood debating it with myself a few moments, and 
then, like a flash of lightning, the truth suddenly 
came to me. “ Jerushy, you ’re goin’ to be married 
to Parson Willetts.” The roses were peonies now. 

“Well, what if I am? Have you any objections?” 

“ Did n’t I hear you say you ’d die an old maid 
afore you ’d marry a minister?” 

‘‘Well, folks change their minds sometimes,” was 
her laconic, comprehensive reply. 

I went off whistling, but Jerusha’s voice came 
after me again. 

“Do you see any thing very bad in my calling 
the minister ‘Stephen’ now, Nathan ?” 

“No, I s’pose not, considerin’.” 

A year and a half went by, and my sister, 
Jerusha Cummins, was Parson Willetts’s wife. She 
passed most of this time at a young ladies’ board- 
ing-school, in a city a hundred miles away, and 
returned with mind enlarged and cultivated, with 
manners softened and dignified, well fitted for the 
new position she was to occupy. 

My father’s prophecy respecting Jerusha was 
verified. Her generous impulses “crystallized into 
solid principles,” and Stephen Willetts never re- 
gretted the day which brought him an unwelcome 
guest to our threshold; for his fair young wife shed 
about his home the sanctity of a loving, Christian 


“nathan! nathan! 


389 


womanhood, and sweetened and enriched every hour 
of his life with her tenderness and self-sacrifice. 
The new parsonage, which his people built for 
Parson Willetts, is still standing, and hoards the 
memories of fifty-seven years in its silent rooms. 

A fair company of boys and girls grew up to man- 
hood and womanhood under its roof, and my nephews 
and nieces have not forgotten the counsels of their 
youth in the prime of their years. 

My father and mother, Jerusha and her husband, 
have all gone to walk under the cedars and the 
palm-trees of the city of our God. 

I am an old, old man, as I said, and my chil- 
dren’s children play around me now, and their joy- 
ous laughter seems sometimes to stir in my heart 
the pulses of its youth; but they never bound as 
they do on some fifteenth of May, fair with sun- 
shine and sweet with south winds, as is this one, 
just like that one far away in the land of my boy- 
hood, from which comes stealing up, through its 
long path of threescore years, the voice of my 
mother, as it came to me across the pasture lot that 
day: “ Nathan! Nathan!” 

And in a little while, I who now stand in 
“ patient waiting,” hope to hear it again, floating in 
tones that my heart will recognize across the green 
pastures and bright waters of the kingdom of 
heaven: “Nathan! Nathan!” 










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